Is it good to sleep during the day and how to do it right

How daytime sleep affects the body

And a short five-minute nap, and a full sleep help1. N. Lovato, L. Lack. The effects of napping on cognitive functioning / Progress in brain research
2. A. Brooks, L. Lack. A brief afternoon nap following nocturnal sleep restriction: which nap duration is most recuperative? /Sleep get rid of fatigue, as well as recharge your batteries for at least 2-3 hours.

Moreover, having a rest during the day, you can improve mental performance in several areas at once:

• Increase attention. AT meta-analysisF. Dutheil, B. Danini, R. Bagheri. Effects of a Short Daytime Nap on the Cognitive Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis / International journal of environmental research and public health 11 scientific papers concluded that daytime naps help you stay focused and alert for several hours after waking up.
• Improve memorization of verbal information. In one researchJ. N. Cousins, K. F. Wong, b. L. Raghunath. The long-term memory benefits of a daytime nap compared with cramming / Sleep
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  students who slept during the day after training remembered the information much better than those who at that time were cramming or just resting. Moreover, knowledge was preserved a week after the experiment.
• Accelerate the learning of motor skills. Scientists discoveredS. C. Medinick, D. J. Cai, J. Kanady. Comparing the benefits of caffeine, naps and placebo on verbal, motor and perceptual memory / Behavioral brain researchthat after an hour of napping, people are much better at learning new motor tasks, such as pressing buttons in a certain order.
• Improve logical thinking. Just 15 minutes of daytime rest helpM. Takahashi, H. Arito. Maintenance of alertness and performance by a brief nap after lunch under prior sleep deficit / Sleep not only get rid of drowsiness, but also increase the accuracy of logical reasoning.
• Speed ​​up the reaction. After a nap, people are faster reactD. F. Dinges, M. T. Orne, W. G. whitehouse. Temporal placement of a nap for alertness: contributions of circadian phase and prior wakefulness / Sleep to visual stimuli. Perhaps that's why a 15-minute rest combined with caffeine tripled reducesL. A. Rayner, J. A. Horne. Suppression of sleepiness in drivers: combination of caffeine with a short nap / Psychophysiology the risk of accidents on the road.

In addition, daytime sleep helpsHow Long Should You Nap? / Cleveland Clinic emotionally "reboot" and reduce psychological stress. After waking up, a person is usually less prone to impulsive behavior and is better at coping with frustration.

At the same time, daytime sleep is equally good. helpsR. Dhand, H. sohal. Good sleep, bad sleep! The role of daytime naps in healthy adults / Current opinion in pulmonary medicine people of all ages, regardless of whether they are accustomed to taking a nap after dinner or not usually do so.

Both those who had a good night's rest and those who didn't sleep at all benefit from it: people with regular schedules, night workers and drivers on long trips.

True, if you do not calculate the time, you can get the opposite effect.

How much sleep do you need to feel good

Most scientific papers agree that it is better not to take a nap for more than half an hour, ideally the rest should last 15–20 minutes.

There are two main reasons not to delay the afternoon rest.

1. Sleep inertia. It's disorientation lethargy and confusion, which persist for some time after awakening.

The longer you sleep during the day, the longer the inertia will be. For example, after 10 minutes of napping, you will feelA. Brooks, L. Lack. A brief afternoon nap following nocturnal sleep restriction: which nap duration is most recuperative? /Sleep feel refreshed and energized almost immediately. A 20-30 minute nap will take about half an hour to fully wake up.

But if you lie down for 1-2 hours, the first time after getting up you risk getting lost in space and time.

The fact is that somewhere in 40 minutes after falling asleep the body passesD. Dijk. Regulation and Functional Correlates of Slow Wave Sleep / Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine into deep sleep mode. In this state the brain producesSleep Basics / Cleveland Clinic slow delta waves, the eyes do not move under the eyelids, the muscles relax.

The more time you spend in this phase, the strongerHow Long Should You Nap? / Cleveland Clinic there will be inertia and more difficult awakening.

2. Violation of night sleep. A long day's rest can negativelyR. Dhand, H. sohal. Good sleep, bad sleep! The role of daytime naps in healthy adults / Current opinion in pulmonary medicine affect the quality of the night: reduce the recovery periods of slow delta sleep and, in general, worsen its quality.

But nap intervals of 15-20 minutes for sure will not violateM. T. Purnell A. M. Feyer, G. P. Herbison. The impact of a nap opportunity during the night shift on the performance and alertness of 12-h shift workers / Journal of sleep research your circadian rhythms and will not interfere with a good night's rest.

What is the best time to sleep during the day

Despite individual differences, most people have the same biological clock.

Most sleepy observedN. Lovato, L. Lack. The effects of napping on cognitive functioning / Progress in brain research from one to four in the morning, the peak of energy falls on the period from 10 am to 13 pm, and in the afternoon - somewhere from 13 to 16 o'clock - many again tend to sleep.

The last interval is ideal for daytime naps.

In one experiment confirmedM. Hayashi, M .Watanabe, T. Hori. The effects of a 20 min nap in the mid-afternoon on mood, performance and EEG activity / Clinical neurophysiologythat if you lie down for 20 minutes at 2 pm, mood, well-being and mental performance will be much better than if you do the same at noon.

As for later breaks, they will also provide wakefulness, but may negatively affect falling asleep at night.

Can naps hurt?

There is some evidence that long naps are not particularly beneficial. So, in a meta-analysis of seven studies with data from 98 thousand people calculatedx. Liu Q. Zhang X. shang. Meta-Analysis of Self-Reported Daytime Napping and Risk of Cardiovascular or All-Cause Mortality / Medical science monitorthat people who regularly sleep more than 60 minutes a day have an increased risk of total mortality compared to those who sleep less.

In another scientific work figured outv. Y. Goo, B. Cao, C. K. H. Wong. The association between daytime napping and risk of diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies / Sleep Medicinethat napping for more than an hour increases the risk of type 2 diabetes by 31%.

Most likely, the habit of resting after dinner does not harm in itself, but only indicates that something is going wrong in the body. So if you cannot do without 1-2 hours of sleep during the day, then it is probably worth consulting with a therapist to rule out possible diseases.