Napping might make nightime sleep worse

MANY of us will have enjoyed a daytime snooze or two over the Christmas period but are naps a good idea or not?

James Wilson, aka The Sleep Geek, is a sleep behaviour and environment expert and suggests that if you struggle to sleep at night, grabbing 40 winks in the afternoon may not be the answer.

“We all appreciate a nap from time to time, but naps are a very nuanced issue,” says James. “They can improve productivity and alertness, but, they also, for a large amount of people, make sleep at night worse.

“Naps don’t improve poor sleep or insomnia, they help sleep deprivation and that is something completely different.

“Naps make sleep worse because they reduce sleep pressure, making it harder to go to sleep and sustain sleep. For poor sleepers, this means our sleep at night gets worse, impacting on our mental and physical health. We nap in the day to reduce the impact of sleep deprivation to feel more alert and be more productive but this approach gets us into a cycle of failure and despair with our sleep never improving.”

Sleeping badly? James Wilson, right, says don’t nap in the day

HERE JAMES HAS SOME TIPS ON MAKING THE MOST OF NAPS

If we sleep poorly at night naps will contribute to the problem: Ditching naps is unlikely to make our sleep issues go away, but working with a sleep professional to understand who ho you are as a sleeper and what changes you can make to your behaviours, mindset and sleep environment will.

Get the duration right: Research shows 10-20 minutes is about the right amount of time to get the benefits of a nap. Set your alarm for about 30-40 minutes and if you wake feeling groggy then reduce it slightly.

The time you have naps is also important. Earlier in the day you are more likely to have light or REM sleep, while later on you may fall into deep or slow wave sleep which makes it more likely the nap will impact sleep at night. Try not to nap after 2pm to avoid this.

Hot drinks: It has been suggested having tea or coffee just before a nap can be beneficial as it gives the double hit of the caffeine (as it takes about 30 minutes to start to metabolise) and the nap.

Plan your naps: The clie clients I work with who do na nap, such as shift workers or those in sport professions, get far more from them by keeping to a regular schedule. This means our body gets used to the rhythm of having them on a regular basis and the person taking naps finds it easier to go to sleep. For more information, visit thesleepgeek.co.uk