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How Long Is A Good Nap?

THE NANO-NAP: 10 to 20 seconds Sleep studies haven’t yet concluded whether there are benefits to these brief intervals, like when you nod off on someone’s shoulder on the train.

THE MICRO-NAP: two to five minutes Shown to be surprisingly effective at shedding sleepiness.

THE MINI-NAP: five to 20 minutes Increases alertness, stamina, motor learning, and motor performance.

THE ORIGINAL POWER NAP: 20 minutes Includes the benefits of the micro and the mini, but additionally improves muscle memory and clears the brain of useless built-up information, which helps with long-term memory (remembering facts, events, and names).

THE LAZY MAN’S NAP: 50 to 90 minutes Includes slow-wave plus REM sleep; good for improving perceptual processing; also when the system is flooded with human growth hormone, great for repairing bones and muscles.

miir wrote:I always feel more tired after taking a nap... so I don't nap.
I don't even sleep much. Six hours is about enough for me.

BOB HIRSHON (host):
Meditate to stay awake. I'm Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

Meditation beats a nap for curing that mid-afternoon slump. That’s according to neuroscientist Bruce O’Hara from the University of Kentucky. He and his student Prashant Kaul tested vounteers’ alertness before and after 40 minutes of meditation in the mid-afternoon, when people are generally drowsy. They found meditation made people much more vigilant. Compare that to people who napped for 40 minutes—he says their scores went down because they were groggy for an hour or more after their nap.

BRUCE O’HARA (University of Kentucky):
The so-called power nap of 10 or 20 minutes is probably not a real nap. People may not really enter sleep, and I would actually perhaps argue that what they’re really getting is the meditative state, if you will.

HIRSHON:
He says most of his volunteers had never meditated before, so even novice meditators can see benefits.

I'm Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.