Almost all of us have an urge to nap some while in the afternoon. However, we refrain ourselves from doing that in order to avoid labeling us as lazy.
Contrary to the believe that only unproductive and sluggish people nap in the afternoon and that sleeping in the afternoon will ruin your natural night sleep, some researches showed that napping is not only pleasant but a very healthy habit.
Short nap in the afternoon will help combating sleepiness and will improve your work performance. It will eliminate the midday crises when you feel that you have low energy and you are unwilling to do anything.
People normally sleep for about 8 hours and are awake for about 16 hours. Nevertheless, biological clock inside us is showing the urge to rest about 2 am and about 2 pm.
If you are chronically deprived of sleeping it will be very difficult to resist your natural urge to nap in the afternoon. And why would you resist?
Many nations such as Spanish people developed this habit of afternoon sleep which is considered perfectly normal and accepted.
If you nap in the afternoon, your body will feel completely renewed and ready to perform other daily activities. Healthy night sleep and afternoon nap will provide all the rest that your body needs.
Afternoon nap will improve your mood and help you stay alert. Being rested and alert is highly important for all people and especially for certain professions such as drivers, doctors, pilots etc.
Napping will provide pleasure to you. It will boost energy into your body. A research was conducted on pilots and it showed that pilots who napped in the afternoon were more alert than the one who didn’t. Being alert in such jobs means having fewer accidents.
Another research shows that night time sleep in combination with afternoon nap improves your learning capabilities. Only 10-minute long nap will give your body rest and will enhance cognitive performance. If you nap for 30 minutes or longer you may feel temporarily groggy when you wake up.
If you drive somewhere it is extremely important to pull over if feeling sleepy and nap for about 20 minutes. You may also drink caffeinated drink. In this way you will increase safety while traveling.
Combination of nap and caffeine is excellent and help for shift workers, especially for night shift workers. It will prevent fatigue, drowsiness and will improve working performance.
However, some people simply cannot sleep in daytime. Others cannot sleep anywhere else than in their bed. Sleeping longer than half an hour can lead to sleeping inertia which will last some while.
The best thing you can do is simply listen to your organism which will tell you whether it needs afternoon nap or not.
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