The do's and don'ts of power napping

Gina DiPietro 0:06
ever catch yourself in the early afternoon thinking, boy, I could use a nap. Well, if done correctly, a nap can improve your health. Welcome to Novant Health healthy headlines. I'm Gina dipietro. Maybe it was a big lunch or you didn't sleep well the night before. So what's the quick fix? It's called a power nap, which can springboard you into a productive alert evening. And this episode clip Mertens talks to Dr. Nancy Behrens and Novant, Health sleep specialist, about how long the perfect power nap should be? How it helps your brain specifically, and tips on creating a setting that's nap friendly. Thank you for listening.

Cliff Mehrtens 0:46
What is the preferred length? for an adult nap? Yeah, for most people, it would be about 20 minutes or less.

And why is it called a power net? Kinda it's a short. It's a short, relatively short time period. But it provides a lot of benefit. So what are the what are the main benefits of

Dr. Nancy Behrens 1:14
so a power nap can help you to feel more alert less sleepy, can boost your creativity, your productivity, and even help with your immune system.

What happens Some people claim that's not enough there, it takes them 10 minutes just to get their pillow comfortable, they need to polish off a 90 minute nap in the middle of the day. That leads to something I learned called sleep inertia. So explain how sometimes too much napping can be not beneficial to you in the middle of the day. Yeah, if if you sleep for 20 minutes or less, you're more likely to stay in the lighter stages of sleep, which can be refreshing and during that time. But if you go for a longer nap, like over night, over 30 minutes, you're probably going to enter slow wave sleep. And that's a very deep stage of sleep that it can be hard to wake up from. So you might actually feel less refreshed. If you try to wake up during slow wave sleep. If you go past 90 minutes, you're more likely to get into REM sleep. So if you go through a REM cycle, you could wind up feeling more refreshed. Somebody who's pretty sleep deprived to start with who's not getting enough sleep at night, might feel better after a longer nap like that, where they do get around period. But then we get into the danger that if somebody is sleeping for prolonged times during the day, that can make it harder to fall asleep at night and take away from your nighttime sleep. I wanted to ask you about that the timing of an app is important. You don't want to do it too early in the day. Pretty soon after you wake up. You don't want to do it too close to bedtime. What's optimally the best time? If you feel you have to take a quote, power nap? What's the best time for that? Yeah, for most people, that would be early afternoon. Most of us do have a dip in our alertness and energy levels, early afternoon like after lunch. And that's when some countries do actually take a siesta.

So if you're able to get a power nap in after lunch, that's a really great time to be able to do it.

Cliff Mehrtens 3:19
What's specifically happens to your brain when you do take one of those naps that's beneficial. I mean, neurologically speaking for for a common person, can you try to explain to what that does to us how it helps us wake up to be more refreshed and sharper? Yeah, your brain kind of gets to rest a little bit too now from all the external stimuli and everything that you're doing for work. So you get a break that way, you go into a later stage of sleep, there are actually some changes in your brain chemistry. One chemical that's involved is adenosine. And that's a chemical that caffeine affects and sleep does as well. So a natural way to increase your alertness by affecting adenosine would be to get a little brief nap.

What sort of setting is important for a nap? I know a lot of times the sun is shining or it's July or it's noisy in my house. What what sort of things would you recommend someone who really wants to establish a good place to take this now? Yeah, so if you're actually able to get kind of away from everything going on, if you're able to lie down someplace comfortable, make everything a little bit darker, or use a sleep mask if you can't dark, dark in the room. earplugs can be helpful as well. So darker, quiet light down. If you have a little light blanket, even for your brief nap it'll probably be a more refreshing nap. You're more likely to doze off a little bit during that time that you have. Sounds very similar to what you'd recommend at night. Keep it? Yeah, kind of controlling the environment making it conducive to sleep.

Gina DiPietro 10:10
Hello Jeannie dipietro again. As you heard a well place to nap is an easy and effective way to boost your energy and avoid dragging through the rest of your day. It's okay to schedule some downtime as little as 20 minutes works fine. Even if you don't fall asleep, you're giving your brain a rest and that will jumpstart your productivity and creativity. For more practical health tips and information search Novant Health healthy headlines. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please take a moment to rate and review us and subscribe to this and all the Novant Health podcasts. We post new episodes all the time. Most are just 15 minutes. Thank you for listening

Cliff Mehrtens 4:58
What about people who feel They always need a nap, they're always playing catch up. Could that be signs of some sort of sleep disorder you have, you're not just tired, because you woke up early, you really have something going on at night when you should be sleeping solid.

Dr. Nancy Behrens 5:11
Yeah, so if somebody is always feeling sleepy or fatigued, and especially if they are allowing enough time for sleep at night, which for most people is around that eight hours, although it can vary for some individuals. But if you're never feeling refreshed, we do worry that you could have some kind of a sleep disorder. Sleep apnea is a common sleep disorder that we see where people stopped breathing at night, often their their snoring and waking up during the night as well. Some people have restless legs and leg movements during the night. Some people act out dreams where they're actually thrashing around and fighting in their sleep. And then if these things are not going on, as somebody who's very sleepy during the day, we consider disorders like narcolepsy.

Cliff Mehrtens 6:01
Is there a magic number for naps? If um, should I look at how many I'm taking per week? Or per month? Or is it just okay to do them? periodically? If you just feel like you need one?

Dr. Nancy Behrens 6:12
Yeah, it's okay to some people actually do make a point of putting some time aside to rest possibly doze off during the day. And that can be very healthy. It's a nice way to decrease your stress levels. Even if you don't doze off for an actual nap, just taking that time to kind of be quiet, rest your brain relax a little bit can be very healthy.

Cliff Mehrtens 6:35
Have you seen I know a lot of times stress plays a part in sleep or interrupting someone sleep. Have you seen during COVID-19 a time when a lot of people are stressed out about various things? Have you seen a lot of disruptions, more disruptions I should say, Now during the pandemic than normal?

Dr. Nancy Behrens 6:53
Well, different things are happening. Um, one good thing coming out of the changes in a lot of people's lifestyle is that we've seen people, some people getting more sleep, because if they're working from home, they don't have that commute time. So they might be able to sleep in a little later. So there is a group of people that's actually getting a little more sleep and feeling better that way. On the other hand, a lot of people are stressed a...