Foundations 2

Nap vs. sleep: a deeper dive

As feedback has started rolling in (THANK YOU!), I’ve found that Dads love naps and typically nap for 1-3 hours. As discussed previously, we would classify this a “sleep,” rather than a “nap,” and to further unpack the preferred nomenclature, I thought it would be helpful to look to the pros.

Sleep Stages

What happens when we sleep?

According to this TED animation by Dr. Sara Mednick, whom we’ve mentioned before (and whose excellent book, Take a Nap! Change Your Life, we plan to address), there are four stages of sleep:

1. 2-5 minutes - easing in

2. 30 min - body temperature drops, muscles relax, breathing and heart rate slow, no grogginess on waking

3. 20-30 min - deepest stage, human need for it grows throughout the day, grogginess likely if napping < 90 min

4. 10-20 min - REM sleep, dreaming

Dr. Sara C. Mednick, image from her website (no rights asserted)

Takeaways

How do we use this to improve our napping?

I read this to mean that if you’re looking for a midday sleep:

1. Keep it under 30 min, lest you wake feeling groggy — you can always extend if you’re still tired

2. If you know 30 min won’t cut it, go for 90 so you get in a full sleep cycle

3. Don’t nap too late in the day

With all that, I generally believe that if you’re tired, you sleep (just like if you get hungry, you should eat something). To that end, I’m putting on some music and setting a timer for 30.