Why you should nap. It would help if you did better to optimize your mental and physical health, immune system functioning, and cognition. Here’s what the American American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society recommends for adults ages 18 to 60: Sleep seven or more hours per night for optimal sleep health. The National Sleep Foundation specifies seven to eight hours is optimal for those 65 years and older.
Not getting enough sleep? You are not alone. Almost 30 percent of adults in the USA get fewer than six hours per night, with rates even worse among younger adults and those with low socioeconomic status.
I don’t want to talk with you today about the health problems of not getting adequate sleep. Instead, let’s turn to three pillars of napping.
Pillar #1. Keep your nap short. Power nap.
Keep your nap relatively brief. Go too long (say over thirty minutes), and you risk sleep inertia. We all know that heavy feeling right after awakening. In more technical terms, it is a physiological state of impaired cognitive and sensory-motor performance that is present immediately after awakening. We are a bit tired, disoriented, and experience a decline in motor dexterity.
Sleep five minutes, and we don’t have enough time to move deeply enough into sleep to yield a real benefit. Go 30 minutes or longer, and you enter slow-wave sleep and get sleep inertia. The sweet spot, according to the National Sleep Foundation, is ten to 20 minutes.
Specific adverse health effects (including diabetes, heart disease, and depression) are associated with mid-day naps lasting more than an hour in duration for older adults. Long naps may indicate that night sleep is of poor quality.
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