A short daytime nap could help your brain. No one boasts about daytime napping. There’s a pervasive sense that it’s the preserve of the elderly or infirm. But could it be that a tendency to nod off after lunch in midlife is the key to preserving brain health? A study from scientists at University College London, published in the journal Sleep Health, suggests that middle-aged people who habitually nap have larger brains than those who don’t. So go close that chambers door, pull up a chair, and read this before you..zzzzzzzzzz..zzzzzzz.
Dr Victoria Garfield, senior author, from the MRC Unit for Lifelong Health & Ageing at UCL. Comments: “Our findings suggest that, for some people, short daytime naps may be a part of the puzzle that could help preserve the health of the brain as we get older,”. The study involved almost 380,000 people aged 40 to 69 from the UK Biobank research database. Scientists compared people more genetically “programmed” to nap with others who didn’t have those genetic variants. Overall, the nappers had a larger total brain volume.
Russell Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience at the University of Oxford, and author of Life Time: The New Science of the Body Clock, and How It Can Revolutionise Your Sleep and Health. suggests when and how we can claim those forty winks to our best advantage.
1. If you don’t nap, chances are you’re getting all the sleep you need
People’s sleep needs vary, and we have to discover what suits us and accommodate that, often day-to-day, rather than fret if we don’t rigidly conform to every alleged norm. “The reason I wrote Life Time was because I was fed up with the sergeant majors of sleep screaming, ‘You must do this, and you must do that,’ ” Foster says.
“Sleep is massively dynamic. It changes as we age. It changes with different circumstances,” he adds. As the UCL scientists note, he says, “There should be absolutely no stigmatisation of how long you sleep, and to some extent, when you sleep. If you are not getting enough sleep at night, and you need a nap during the day, then the occasional nap is fine.”
2. Limit daytime dozing to 20 minutes max
Earlier studies suggest naps of 30 minutes or less provide the best short-term cognitive benefits, note the UCL scientists, with people who enjoyed a short nap performing better in cognitive tests in the hours afterwards than those who didn’t nap. However, Foster says, “The recommendation that I would use is not longer than 20 minutes because studies suggest that if it’s longer, you go down into a deeper state of sleep and then recovery from that can leave you a bit woolly.”
3. Frequent napping might indicate a lack of night-time sleep
If you often don’t go to sleep until the early hours because you’ve been bingeing Netflix, or you rise at 5am to squeeze in an early gym session, no wonder you’re a napper. “The caution about napping is that it probably indicates that you might not be getting enough sleep during the night,” Foster says. But paying off your sleep debt in late afternoon can perpetuate this. “You have to be careful not to fall into a loop of shortened night-time sleep and the need for longer daytime naps.”
Teenagers often get caught in this cycle. “They’re going to sleep very late at night because they’re delayed biologically — their chronotype is later — and also because of the use of social media.” They struggle through school, conk out when they get home, and sleep for two hours or so. “This pushes back the sleep pressure, which makes it more difficult for them to get to sleep that night.”
4. Don’t snooze later than 2pm
To get the most out of a nap, make it early and keep it short. “Not later than 2pm,” Foster says. “Previous studies suggest that if it’s an early afternoon nap of 20 minutes, actually you can improve performance during the second half of the day.” So if you’ve napped by 2pm, “it can make the 2pm to 5pm slot more productive”. But sleep is rarely perfect, and if we do need the odd napette (as we say chez nous) we shouldn’t feel guilty. “Some people have a much more fragmented sleep pattern,” Foster says. “There’s no problem — if it works for you. Just be careful that you’re not sliding into a pattern that is counterproductive.”
5. A need to nap can have other causes
It’s important to distinguish between sleepiness and fatigue, Foster says. “Sleepiness is cured by getting sleep.” If you get a lot of night-time sleep, still need to nap, and feel no better, “That might indicate that you’ve got fatigue, and that might indicate some underlying health issues, which you might want to keep track of.” He also notes that sleeping tablets at night, particularly in the elderly, have been shown to increase daytime napping. These drugs are sedatives — “they don’t provide a biological mimic for sleep. They can actually disrupt some of the processes that occur during natural sleep, which is potentially why you require a top-up of sleep during the day.” If you’re concerned, he says, see your GP.
6. It’s possible to recharge without sleep
A nap would be a fine thing, but you can’t drift off. Eventually you manage a fuzzy doze, minutes before it’s time to get up. It all counts. “A short period of relaxation without sleep can also probably also help recharge — just a period of winding down, de-stressing. It might just be lying down, closing your eyes, chilling out, and going into a deep relaxation state,” Foster says. Depending on your situation (and how exhausted you are), a short bout of exercise can also be reviving. “A 20-minute nap versus 20 minutes of exercise? Go for the exercise. That will probably pep you up more effectively. It increases blood flow and it de-stresses — it’s acting as a small reboot.”