New NASA study reveals the perfect time for a nap

Sleep deprivation can plague anyone, from a school student during exam days to a commercial pilot. Loss of adequate sleep can hinder the entire day’s performance due to overwhelming sleep fatigue. A severe lack of energy and exhaustion indicates sleep fatigue, a common effect of sleep deprivation. The tiredness arises from a variety of factors that disrupt the routine sleep cycle such as noise disturbances, sleep disorders, chronic sleeplessness for more than two days in a row, or forced wakefulness when you’re supposed to sleep which is quite common among students during exam periods.

Sleep deprivation is prevalent among doctors, medical students, and commercial pilots on the night shift. Longer periods of wakefulness cause microsleep, which poses significant risks of slipups during critical surgeries or flights. Individuals who drive for extended periods without sleep are at risk of microsleep as well, a dangerous condition connected to numerous deadly accidents. Microsleep is the brief, involuntary moment of sleep that lasts only a few seconds, often occurring so quickly that you don’t even realize you’ve dozed off. The brain momentarily shuts down, making it the brain’s way of responding to extreme fatigue. During these fleeting episodes, you may even sleep with your eyes open as your brain ceases to process information for a few seconds.

Sleep deprivation has two harmful effects- sleep fatigue and microsleep. Coffee may seem like a saviour, a fan-favourite stimulant to combat sleep fatigue. However, new research by Cassie J. Hilditch from San Jose State University Research Foundation, NASA Ames Research Center revealed napping to be a more effective countermeasure to sleep fatigue and prevent microsleep. Longer periods of wakefulness can be endured with napping.

Napping the proper way

Napping or a brief, light sleep can make sleep deprivation somewhat bearable, and pull through the day effectively. Here are a few ways to ensure you are napping the right way for optimal results.

Sleep environment
Make sure to create the ideal environment for napping for a good-quality nap. Quality weighs over quantity. Time does not matter as much as the sleep environment does. A dark ambience lets your brain know that it’s time to rest, while a quiet space removes noise disruptions, allowing undisturbed sleep. Maintaining a cool temperature is also crucial, as it regulates body temperature, making you sleep well. Consider a reclined support, don’t doze off at your table. A flat, reclined support offers necessary alignment and eases the strain on muscles and joints; or prevents body pain from napping at awkward angles elsewhere. Finally, the environment has to be safe, to drift into a nap, devoid of any anxiety. Staying subconsciously alert and on guard while you’re napping only gives you a poor nap quality.

Body clock
Your body has a sleep clock, a circadian rhythm to maintain the sleep schedule. Time is crucial to ace napping. Avoid evening naps at all costs, as they will inevitably disrupt your night sleep, leaving you wide-eyed at night, counting sheep. If you can’t sleep well at night, opt for a daytime nap to recover from the tiredness. An all-nighter requires a mid-night nap, for a more effective way to stay refreshed while staying up at night.

Nap to prevent microsleep
Nodding off, or getting those fleeting mini-episodes of sleep during the day is your body telling you to sleep. Leave everything, and take a quick nap promptly. The microsleep signals that you desperately require rest. Microsleep causes a lack of alertness, a recipe for potential disaster. To maintain safety, address your sleep needs promptly, and take a quick nap.

Best time for a nap
The effectiveness of the nap also depends on how long you have been awake. The research revealed a correlation between performance quality and naps taken after particular periods of wakefulness. If you’ve been awake for about 7 hours and take a 10-minute nap at 2 PM, it can significantly boost your performance for up to 3 hours. However, if you’ve been awake for 21 hours and take a nap at 4 AM, the nap will only help stabilize your performance for around 1 hour, without any significant improvement. If you’ve been awake for 24 hours and nap at 7 AM, the brief rest won’t have much effect on your performance at all. The timing and duration of sleep deprivation influence how effective a short nap can be.

But the nap should not be more than 30 minutes. Beyond this time, you drift off to deep sleep and wake up with sleep inertia. Sleep inertia is the period of intense disorientation and grogginess after you wake up. This temporary state slows cognitive function and delays reaction time. Sleep inertia takes about 30 minutes to recover, and return to the earlier state of complete concentration. The grogginess after a prolonged nap may disrupt the workflow and productivity, so limit your sleep to under 30 minutes, to bounce back to work immediately after the quick nap.