Is it useful to sleep during the day and how to do it correctly

0

It is sometimes worth taking a nap, but the main thing is not to overdo it.

How daytime sleep affects the body

Both a short five-minute nap and a full-fledged sleep help to get rid of fatigue and recharge energy for at least 2-3 hours.

Moreover, by resting during the day, you can improve mental performance in several areas:

• Increase attention. A meta-analysis of 11 scientific papers concluded that daytime sleep helps you stay focused and alert for several hours after waking up.
• Improve memory 'remembering verbal information.' In one study, students who slept in the afternoon after studying remembered information much better than those who cram or simply rested during that time. In addition, the knowledge was preserved a week after the experiment.
• Accelerate the learning of motor skills. Scientists have found that after an hour of daytime sleep, people learn new motor tasks much better, such as pressing buttons in a certain order.
• Improve logical thinking. Just 15 minutes of daytime rest helps not only to get rid of drowsiness, but also to increase the accuracy of logical reasoning.
• Speed ​​up the reaction.After a daytime nap, people respond faster to visual stimuli. Maybe that's why a 15-minute rest combined with caffeine reduces the risk of accidents on the road by three times.

In addition, daytime sleep helps to emotionally reset and reduce psychological stress. After waking up, a person is usually less prone to impulsive behavior and copes with frustration better.

At the same time, daytime sleep helps people of any age equally well, regardless of whether they are used to sleeping after dinner or do not usually do so.< /p>

It benefits both those who got a good night's rest and those who didn't sleep at all: people with a regular schedule, night workers and drivers on long trips.

However, if you do not calculate the time, you can get the reverse effect.

How much do you need to sleep to feel good

Most scientific works agree that it is better not to sleep for more than half an hour, ideally rest should last 15-20 minutes.

p>

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

1. Inertia of sleep.This is disorientation, lethargy and confusion of consciousness that persists for some time after waking up.

The longer you sleep during the day, the longer the inertia will be. For example, after a 10-minute nap, you will feel refreshed and energetic almost immediately. A 20-30 minute sleep will require about half an hour to fully wake up.

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

The fact is that about 40 minutes after falling asleep, the body goes into deep sleep mode. In this state, the brain produces slow delta waves, the eyes do not move under the eyelids, and the muscles relax.

The more time you spend in this phase, the stronger the inertia and the harder it is to wake up.

< p>2. Disruption of night sleep. Long daytime rest can negatively affect the quality of night sleep: reduce restorative periods of slow delta sleep and generally worsen its quality.

But daytime nap intervals of 15-20 minutes will certainly not disrupt your circadian rhythms and will not prevent you from getting a full night's rest.

What is the best time to sleep during the day

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

The greatest sleepiness is observed from one to four in the morning, the peak of energy falls from 10 in the morning to 1 pm, and after dinner somewhere from 1 to 4 pm for many drifts off to sleep again.

The last interval is perfect for a daytime nap.

One experiment confirmed that if you lie down for 20 minutes at 2 p.m., your 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 energy, but can have a negative effect on falling asleep at night.

Can a daytime nap be harmful

There is some evidence that a long daytime nap is not very beneficial. Thus, in a meta-analysis of seven studies with data from 98,000 people, it was estimated that people who regularly sleep more than 60 minutes during the day have an increased risk of total mortality compared to those who sleep less.

In another scientific work found that daytime sleep lasting more than an hour increases the risk of type 2 diabetes by 31%.

Most likely, the habit of resting after dinner is not harmful in itself, but only indicates that something is wrong in the body going wrong So if you can't do without 1-2 hours of daytime sleep, then maybe you should consult a therapist to rule out possible diseases.