A short afternoon nap will boost your alertness and energy, allowing you to push through the rest of the day. While naps cannot compensate for sleep loss, they can certainly be a useful tool if your nighttime sleep quality has been less than optimal. One can say that napping is as much a part of our DNA as nighttime sleep is. Who can benefit from a cat nap?Įveryone! All humans experience mid day sleep bouts due to our inherent circadian rhythm. To put it simply, cat naps are great, but the long siesta will do you no good, so have your alarm clock handy when going for a power nap. Likewise, cognitive performance test scores drop after a long nap due to sleep inertia. Furthermore, too long of a nap may create trouble falling asleep at night. Longer naps do not have the same benefits as short naps, and in fact, may be detrimental to health and decrease memory performance.įor example, a 2021 study conducted among the Chinese senior population showed that subjects who slept for more than an hour throughout the day had an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. It is worth noting that many of the positive effects of napping only apply to short naps. You can read more about the scientifically verified benefits of napping here. Regular napping also has remarkable benefits for your physical health, including decreased risk of heart disease and lower stress levels. Short power naps have been scientifically proven to increase cognitive ability as well as creativity. The above graph shows alertness levels with and without a nap during the day. You can find specially composed nap music along with other tools for better sleep in the Pzizz app. There’s even music created specifically for this purpose. Many people find that quiet, slow-paced music helps them fall asleep. This is sometimes called a coffee nap or nappuccino. Scientists have found that having a cup of coffee right before a nap creates a synergistic effect so that one feels even more awake than one would after daytime napping or coffee alone. So set your alarm clock and get up on time. If your nap length is longer than this, you will miss the benefits. Set the alarmĪ cat nap should not be more than 20 minutes. Find a quiet place that is not too hot or bright, and leave your cell phone in flight mode. Some people have the magical ability to doze off anywhere, at any time, but for the majority of us, creating a calm atmosphere is necessary to induce daytime sleep. Tips for a great cat napĬat naps are sometimes incidental, but if you want to try cat naps for health, here are some basic tips to improve your nap and fall asleep faster. Oh, and just in case you’re wondering: Most cats sleep around 15 hours a day on average, but spend only approximately 25% of this time in deep sleep. In this manner, sticking to a quick nap rather than dozing off for an hour or more is a good idea to avoid sleep inertia. In a short power nap of 20 minutes or so, you will not enter the deeper stages of sleep, yet you will still experience REM sleep and alleviate sleep pressure. Short naps on the other hand have multiple benefits. How long is a cat nap?Ī cat nap are never long, and there’s a reason for that: Several studies have shown that there are disadvantages to longer daytime naps, which may leave you with sleep inertia (sleep-hungover) since you will enter the deep stages of sleep, yet won’t complete a satisfying amount of sleep cycles. Britons also sometimes call a quick nap ‘forty winks’. The meaning of a cat nap is a short nap, similar to a micro nap or power nap.
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