![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 6 of 6. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by jrbecker on June 26, 2003, at 16:24:26
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=healthNews&storyID=2987053
Although this news is not psychopharmacological in nature, I still thought it would be enlightening for the board since so many of us suffer from chronic daytime sleepiness. Let's here it for naps.
>>>>>>
In Learning, Short Nap Is as Good as Night's Sleep
Wed June 25, 2003 10:11 AM ET
By Alison McCookNEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Research has shown that people need a good night's sleep in order to perform better on a number of tests that measure different skills. Now new findings suggest that, in the case of a visual test, a short nap does the job just as well as hours of nighttime z's.
U.S. investigators found that people who took a 60- to 90-minute nap after practicing a task that tests visual perception skills improved their performance just as much as if they had gotten a full night's sleep.
And people who got both a nap and a full night's sleep showed similar improvements in test performance to what would appear after two full nights of sleep, the study's lead author told Reuters Health.
"People who had a nap and a full night of sleep actually looked like they had two nights of sleep," said Dr. Sara Mednick of the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.
She noted that the test used in the study measures how well people can use their eyes to pick out certain objects from their surroundings, a skill that applies to many areas of life.
However, these results describe only improvements on a specific test of visual skills, and Mednick cautioned that they do not suggest that sleeping for only 90 minutes is generally as good as a full night's rest.
"I don't think you can replace a night of sleep with a nap," she said.
During the study, published in the advance online issue of Nature Neuroscience, Mednick and her team asked around 70 people to complete a basic visual test in which they had to spot a specific image on a screen filled with other images.
Tests occurred at 9 a.m. and 7 p.m. on the same day.
Some of the study participants were allowed to take a nap in the mid-afternoon, lasting either 60 or 90 minutes.
In an interview, Mednick explained that research has shown that any "improvement" in the test -- meaning, spotting the target image faster than in previous rounds -- occurred only after test takers had a good night's sleep.
In contrast, asking people to repeat the test many times on the same day, without giving them a break to sleep, tends to worsen their performance, Mednick said.
In this study, however, Mednick and her team found that people who took a nap that included both deep, slow-wave sleep and the lighter, dream-filled sleep stage known as REM showed improvements on their afternoon test that were similar to what would typically have been seen after a night's rest.
"That improvement was equal to the amount of improvement you would show if you'd had six hours of sleep," Mednick said.
"So the nap was actually as good as a night of sleep to show learning, in this specific task," she added.
And taking a nap and having a good night's sleep improved test performance even further, equivalent to what was seen from non-nappers after two nights' rest, Mednick said.
She noted that the time of day a person takes a nap is probably important. The naps that led to test improvements were those that featured both slow-wave and REM sleep, Mednick said, and naps that take place in the morning or evening -- as opposed to the afternoon -- typically contain either one or the other sleep stages.
SOURCE: Nature Neuroscience 2003;doi:10.1038/nn1078.
Posted by Ritch on June 26, 2003, at 23:31:14
In reply to Naps as beneficial to performance as nitetime Zz's, posted by jrbecker on June 26, 2003, at 16:24:26
I had to take short naps during the afternoon after college classes in the morning, before I went to work at night-using an egg timer. It got me by OK, but driving after the alarm went off was a little haphazard for the first few minutes.
Posted by MB on June 27, 2003, at 15:36:28
In reply to Naps as beneficial to performance as nitetime Zz's, posted by jrbecker on June 26, 2003, at 16:24:26
Thank you, thank you!! I take a two hour nap on a daily basis. I just can't tolerate being awake for more than eight hours at a time...just to taxing (physically *and* psychologically). I usually feel more tired after my nap, but that is easily rectified by a cup of green tea (and them I'm as good as new).
I had been feeling guilty and slothful for my daily siestas, but after reading your post, I think I'll take license to nap away!!!
MB
Posted by MB on June 27, 2003, at 15:48:43
In reply to Re: Naps as beneficial to performance as nitetime Zz's » jrbecker, posted by Ritch on June 26, 2003, at 23:31:14
> I had to take short naps during the afternoon after college classes in the morning, before I went to work at night-using an egg timer. It got me by OK, but driving after the alarm went off was a little haphazard for the first few minutes.
Yes! I know what you mean. Sometimes after my nap, I will feel more tired than before. I wouldn't want to drive that way. This is transient and attenuated by a small dose of caffeine (green tea works). However, I'm wondering if there is a correlation between the length of a nap and the phenomenon of either feeling more rested or less rested after the nap. I heard (urban legend?) that anything over 30 minutes will make you more tired. Heck, I'm barely getting started at 30 minutes. My naps last 2 hrs to the proverbial "T". I wonder what that says about the length of my sleep cycles.MB
Posted by Ritch on June 27, 2003, at 23:29:18
In reply to Re: Naps as beneficial to performance as nitetime Zz's » Ritch, posted by MB on June 27, 2003, at 15:48:43
> > I had to take short naps during the afternoon after college classes in the morning, before I went to work at night-using an egg timer. It got me by OK, but driving after the alarm went off was a little haphazard for the first few minutes.
>
>
> Yes! I know what you mean. Sometimes after my nap, I will feel more tired than before. I wouldn't want to drive that way. This is transient and attenuated by a small dose of caffeine (green tea works). However, I'm wondering if there is a correlation between the length of a nap and the phenomenon of either feeling more rested or less rested after the nap. I heard (urban legend?) that anything over 30 minutes will make you more tired. Heck, I'm barely getting started at 30 minutes. My naps last 2 hrs to the proverbial "T". I wonder what that says about the length of my sleep cycles.
>
> MB
I didn't have that much time. I would get out of my last class and go home and have about 45 minutes or so before I had to leave for work. If I went to sleep without an alarm-I would have slept all afternoon-since I was only sleeping 3-4 hrs every night (studying after work). So, I was always being awakened from deep sleep stages, that's why driving was kind of weird. When the egg timer went off I had less than five minutes to get a glass of water, etc., and get the car started.
Posted by Caleb462 on June 28, 2003, at 1:37:46
In reply to Re: Naps as beneficial to performance as nitetime Zz's » Ritch, posted by MB on June 27, 2003, at 15:48:43
> > I had to take short naps during the afternoon after college classes in the morning, before I went to work at night-using an egg timer. It got me by OK, but driving after the alarm went off was a little haphazard for the first few minutes.
>
>
> Yes! I know what you mean. Sometimes after my nap, I will feel more tired than before. I wouldn't want to drive that way. This is transient and attenuated by a small dose of caffeine (green tea works). However, I'm wondering if there is a correlation between the length of a nap and the phenomenon of either feeling more rested or less rested after the nap. I heard (urban legend?) that anything over 30 minutes will make you more tiredI think the actual fact is, that anything over 30 minutes may interfere with getting to sleep later on that night.
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Medication | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.