Is It A Short Nap That Completes Your Entire Sleep?
We all are familiar with sleeping disorders due to the stressful life that we are leading today itself. Not only adults, old age group people but also the teenage group or pre-school going children are affected badly with its heavy consequences.
So to combat this issue, there is an alternative known as a short nap. But this is not a complete solution to your average sleeping hours in a day.
Let us find out how?
About study
The latest study from Michigan State University’s Sleep and Learning lab says that a short nap is not going to make you feel relief from your sleep deprivation. This is a study to find out the cognitive deficiency which is related to sleep disorders.
It was published in a journal known as Sleep and is considered as the first study to measure the effectiveness of shorter naps, which have become a mandatory part of people’s lives as they fit into their busy schedules.
Findings
The findings of this latest study said that short naps of around thirty to sixty minutes are not showing any measurable effects. It means these naps are not sufficient enough to complete the requirement of average sleeping hours for an individual’s body.
Slow-wave sleep
This is a word that has emerged out in the study very well. Slow-wave sleep or SWS is considered the deepest and most restorative stage of sleep. The amplitude marked in it is high while there are low-frequency brain waves. It is that stage in which our whole body is relaxed. Our muscle is relaxed and our heart rate and respiration process are at the slowest.
Why SWS is important?
According to Kimberly Fann, Associate Professor of MSU, study author, when a person goes to sleep without a specific period, even it is during the day-hours, then they build up a demand for sleep, in particular, they required SWS. When a person goes to sleep at night, then they will sooner enter the stage of SWS. He/she spends an ample amount of time in this stage.
The study had a research team of Erik Altmann, Professor of Psychology, Michelle Stepan, a recent MSU alumina. The participants included have completed a task while they arrived lab in the evening time.
Three groups were assigned some random tasks. The first one was sent home for sleep, the second stayed overnight in the lab and took 30-60 minutes of nap only, the third one did not take any nap in their deprivation condition. The next day all were collected in lab to repeat the tasks in the same manner.
Result of assigned task
It has been found out that group which stayed overnight and took short naps had consequences of depression and made errors in their tasks as well than those who went home and took full sleep. Participants which had more percentage of SWS showed reduced errors in both the tasks. But their performance was not up to the mark. They were lagging behind those obtaining complete sleep.
Summing up all
Therefore, the findings give us a conclusion that every individual must take full sleep at night because this short-wave sleep cannot replace a full night's sleep. These will lead to sleeping disorders, depression and so. So, we all must take a healthy sleep every night.
