Being in college means you need to be the master of power napping. Students need to be able to manage their work and be able to catch up on lost sleep while they are at it. Personally, I find it very important to nap for at least 1 hour during the day to keep my mind fresh. Keeping this in mind, I came up with the hypotheses, how affective can taking naps be for the college student? I looked at many different kinds of studies and facts that were found on this topic, but only two really stood out with key information for the sake of this blog post. The first study I looked at was done at Saarland University in Germany. The researchers taught students 90 words with another 120 phrases and then split the groups up; one would take a nap, and the other group would watch a DVD. The group who took the nap performed much better when tested on the words they had previously been taught. It seems as though taking the nap overall helped the students to remember the information. All in all, the results found that sleeping for even as much as 45 to 60 minutes can improve your information retrieval by almost 5 times. This to me proves in itself that taking naps before and after class can be a very affective way to stay focused on the topics at hand.
Another study done on this topic was done at the University of California, Riverside. The lead on this study, Sara Mednick, says that naps of different lengths will have different affects on the body. She agrees with the study above that naps up to an hour long will improve your information retrieval. She then goes on to talk about different naps and how they help the body. Her studies show that a nap of 10 to 20 minutes will give you more alertness upon waking up. I found it very interesting that a nap of 6 minutes actually has a positive affect on your body. The study shows that these extremely short naps can improve someone declarative memory. These are the memories that are used to recall facts that we have heard in the past. Finally, she talks about 90 minute naps and how these can help with creativity and calm down emotions. To me, it is very interesting that different time periods of napping can have such different effects on the body. I would have thought that napping for anything less than 20 minutes would have absolutely no affect on the body, as you are not giving it enough time to rest and recover from the days activities.
With finals week coming up, napping can be a very affective way to get the most out of your studying. I like what both of these studies had to say about the topic, so I will definitely take their findings in mind as I move through the toughest week of the year. Many students will not be sleeping at all during this week, as their lives will only consist of studying, so taking short naps some days and long naps other days will help a ton.
http://io9.com/the-science-behind-power-naps-and-why-theyre-so-damne-1401366016
I found your post to be very helpful! I always am worried that if i take a nap i will just be more tired then alert, so I tend to push myself to keep working and i end up not doing as well as i could. I find other Websites that go along with the studies you have found. Short naps as sort as 10 or 20 may be all you meed to get the mental benefits of sleep without risking grogginess. You get that groggy feeling known as “sleep inertia” if you take naps over 45 minutes. To get the most energy out of your nap, you should also drink a cup of coffee right before you take a 20 minute nap because that is how long it usually takes for a cup of coffee to really kick in your system. So after that 20 minute nap you are not only refreshed but also energized.
Great article about a very vital topic, especially in our situation. Last spring break I did some training down in Virginia and the group I was with had the opportunity to speak with a very reputable nutritionist. She talked extensively about getting the right amount of sleep and napping and everything you said agrees with what I had learned. However, one of the important things to note is that feeling groggy, which is essentially still feeling tired and un-alert even after you’ve woken up, sets in at around 30-45 minutes. One interesting trick she taught us was to drink a small cup of coffee BEFORE taking a nap. The caffeine, which takes about an hour to take effect, will begin to take affect at the same time you wake up if you have the time to take a 45-60 minute nap. Food for thought.
This blog was interesting to read because I didn’t know that there were certain time intervals for naps that improved different areas, such as how a nap of 10-20 minutes can help improve alertness and how 90 minute naps can help with creativity. I find it really difficult to take naps because I am either in class or studying, but it’s good to know that taking a break for a short nap could actually improve my academics.
Here is the link to an article on a few reasons why napping is good for you: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/nap-benefits-national-napping-day_n_2830952.html
I usually take 5-20 minutes naps so I can get more energy. Since the beginning of this school year, people questioned how these short naps work for and though it was an anecdotal situation, but this blog supports my hypothesis. I have also found naps to decrease stress, and makes me less jittery. An article claims that a short nap is better than coffee, because caffeine can decrease memory performance. The article also supports that naps may reduce stress. In order to get the most out of naps be consistent with the time you take them, make it quick (30minutes or less), and find a dark room that blocks out light.
Personally, napping and I have a love hate relationship. Everyday for the past few months, all I can think about is going to sleep. Sleeping is one of the greatest things because you have no worries. But when I nap, I wake up to a boatload of worries. I wake up frantically thinking about all the time I just wasted that I could have spent working. On a deeper level, napping diminishes my actual sleep. Because of the naps, I am less tired later at night, when I actually need a good nights sleep, instead of a little pick me up in the middle of the day. I found this article too which explains some of the benefits and side effects of naps, and when you take them, http://sleepdisorders.about.com/od/causesofsleepdisorder1/fl/How-Do-Naps-Affect-Sleep-at-Night.htm . Because of this, even though my mind wants to nap a lot, I rarely do for it compromises my sleep at night.
I am so happy to hear that naps are good for you! I have always been a big fan of napping but wasn’t sure if it was actually helping. I looked up a few more sites to see if they correlated with this nap timing theory and most sites I looked at suggested 10-30 minute naps to avoid grogginess after waking up. I usually take one hour naps and I do sometimes feel groggy but I usually am happy I got the nap in and that joy of knowing I got more sleep makes me feel better. Maybe a weird theory but it works for me! I find that my body does not like waking up after only a 20 minute nap. It would be interesting to see research done correlating between people who typically take short naps verses those who take long naps. I am curious to see if there are any long term differences between being consistent in nap length. Anyway, I definitely plan on napping a lot during finals week!
I love this site! It has so much good information about napping. https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/napping
Heres another! http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21075238
I found the study on the different types of naps very interesting and definitely true based on my own personal experience. I know when I close my eyes for a few minutes I feel a lot better and more alert. The effects of long naps, speaking about 2-3 hours naps, would be interesting to add in here. According to the link below, naps can actually cause something called sleep inertia, which is grogginess after waking up if they last for more than 10-20 minutes. Another negative effect of naps are the fact that if too long, they can interfere with your regular sleep cycle at night. Apparently many people are discouraged from naps too, as they look at it as being lazy and something only for the sick/elderly. Thanks for the post though, very interesting and definitely something i’ll keep in mind during finals week!
https://sleepfoundation.org/sleep-topics/napping
One of the most relevant topics of any of the blogs I’ve seen to me as a college student! I’ve been curious about rather or not short naps help you, hurt you, or had zero effect. I find myself napping all the time for periods of time of 20 minutes to a few hours and figured that they were probably doing more bad than good, but I would be so tired after waking up for 8ams that I needed some more sleep. Good to know!
Although I agree with your studies and do personally take naps, I found an interesting article on how naps can now be seen as able to increase one’s risk of diabetes! Scientists from the University of Tokyo looked at 200 studies with 261,000 participants to come to the conclusion that hour long naps in the afternoon can increase one’s risk of developing diabetes by 46%. They said this only included long naps though, not short naps. Like you said, short naps are good for you!