Taking a nap lasting more than 40 minutes can raise your risk of premature death, new research has suggested. A study of more than 300,000 people found that taking long naps during the daytime is linked to developing metabolic syndromes including obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Long naps lasting more than an hour are associated with a 34% elevated risk of heart disease and a 30% greater risk of death, according to the combined results of 20 previous studies. Overall, naps of any length were associated with a 19% increased risk of premature death, a Chinese research team found.
Overall, the team found an association between genetic predisposition to habitual daytime napping and larger brain volume equivalent to 2.6 to 6.5 fewer years of ageing, although there was no relationship with cognitive performance such as reaction times.
2-Hour Naps and 3-Hour Naps
A 2 hour nap and 3 hour nap seem great but chances are, napping for this prolonged period may have more ill effects than better. You may feel more groggy after a 2 hour nap, and may suffer insomnia that night after a 3 hour nap. The best nap length when sleep-deprived is up to 90 minutes.
Keep in mind that every child is different. Even though most children stop napping between the ages of 3 and 5, your child may stop napping as young as 2 or as old as 6. There is no one specific “normal” age when your child is supposed to give up on naps. The transition may not necessarily be linear either.
Many experts recommend the 2-3-4 approach for babies needing two daytime snoozes. It works by gradually increasing the time between naps throughout the day: two hours of staying awake before the first nap, three hours between the first and second naps, and four hours before bedtime.
Daytime napping among older people is a normal part of aging – but it may also foreshadow Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. And once dementia or its usual precursor, mild cognitive impairment, are diagnosed, the frequency and/or duration of napping accelerates rapidly, according to a new study.
But for the most part, studies suggest biphasic sleep patterns are relatively harmless. So long as you're still getting approximately seven to nine hours of sleep a night, most research suggests it's fine if that sleep happens in two sessions.
What is the optimal length of time for a nap? Naps can be short (15 to 30 minutes) or longer; both short and long naps can increase alertness and be useful. Take into account that sleep becomes deeper the longer you sleep, reaching the deepest level (slow-wave sleep) in about 1 hour.
Aim to nap for only 10 to 20 minutes. The longer you nap, the more likely you are to feel groggy afterward. However, young adults might be able to tolerate longer naps. Take naps in the early afternoon.
Older adults tended to nap longer and more frequently with aging, while the progression of Alzheimer's dementia accelerates this change by more than doubling the annual increases in nap duration/frequency. Longer and more frequent daytime naps were associated with higher risk of Alzheimer's dementia.
Older adults are more likely to take naps during the daytime due to age-related changes in circadian rhythms and sleep patterns. Cultural beliefs, chronic conditions, medications, and lifestyle changes can also contribute to daytime napping. Napping may impact health outcomes among older people.
Remember, inadequate sleep accelerates the aging process. During deep sleep, growth hormones help damaged skin cells repair. When you don't get enough sleep, the daily breakdown in your skin doesn't get a chance to repair overnight. Over time this can lead to more visible signs of aging.
Though a nap is just one element among many daily rituals of these long-living Grecians, some research points explicitly to the benefits of napping for longevity (by way of its potential ability to mitigate heart disease).
A midday snooze can be helpful, but the need for one might signal chronic sleep deprivation. In many cultures, napping in the afternoon is not only common, but a regular part of daily life.
She recommended people take a short 20-minute nap if they feel the need for one, but also cautioned against long or multiple naps as they may interfere with the ability to get a longer sleep at night. “So, the simple answer is that short naps are natural, normal and often good for you,” she said.
My version of the Hour Rule is a bit different than some other sleep consultants choose to use. Most will explain the Hour Rule to mean one hour in the crib. If your child falls asleep prior to that hour ending, then you get your child up the moment they wake.
Sleep researcher Dean Croke recommends what's known as the 30-90 rule. As the name suggests, it means aiming to get either a 30-minute or a 90-minute nap to take advantage of the sleep cycles and avoid waking up during deep sleep, which can have some serious consequences — but more on that later.
Limit your nap to 45 minutes or less, if you need to spring into action after dozing. Otherwise, you may drift into slow-wave sleep. Waking from this stage results in sleep inertia, that grogginess and disorientation that can last for half an hour or more. But you might want to take a long nap, at least 90 minutes.
Leonardo da Vinci's sleep schedule included 20-minute naps every four hours. Da Vinci followed an extreme form of a polyphasic sleep schedule called the Uberman sleep cycle, which consists of 20-minute naps every four hours.
First/Second Sleep Schedule: The original biphasic sleep schedule, from the preindustrial era, split sleep into two segments during the night. People would have their first sleep around 9 p.m. or 10 p.m., wake up around midnight for an hour or two, and then have their second sleep after that.
As people age, they tend to sleep more lightly and often awaken during the night from achy joints or the need to go to the bathroom. Many people compensate for this lost sleep by catching a restorative nap during the day. That's normal.
According to their internal body clock, most older adults need to go to sleep around 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. and wake up at 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. Many people fight their natural inclination to sleep and choose to go to bed several hours later instead.
Their organs are slowing down, and they have less energy. As a result, their body needs more rest to work effectively. When people grow older, they also spend more time sleeping because they can't do as many things as quickly as before.