Need a power nap? Here's how they may help – but not for everyone

Key points about power naps

• Power naps may help improve cognitive performance and alertness 
• Power naps may help improve mood
• Power naps don't work as well for the sleep-deprived
• Power naps don't replace a full night's sleep

Tired. You’re so tired. But you have to get through the day, perform at work, and juggle the kids and household responsibilities. Can having a power nap help?

The answer might surprise you. A power nap – or a short, daytime nap – has been found to be beneficial in a number of areas, including the improvement of cognitive performance.

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In one study, cognitive performance and alertness were found to improve for two hours after a power nap. It was also found that the best results come when the power nap occurs before 1pm.

It's results like these that are leading employers to investigate whether implementing a 'napping at work' strategy could lead to improved work efficiency.   

Other studies have found power naps may contribute to improved long-term memory as well as improved reaction time, logical reasoning and mood.

However, it appears the benefits of a power nap depend on how sleep-deprived you are in the first place. This recent study suggests short naps may not be so powerful for those struggling with getting enough sleep at night.

Do power naps help our thinking abilities while we’re sleep-deprived? 

Researchers at Michigan State University’s Sleep and Learning Lab recently did a study looking at whether power naps help us to improve our thinking ability while sleep deprived. 

They asked 280 study participants to complete a series of thinking tasks (including being interrupted during the tasks) before randomly assigning them to one of three groups who: 

1. were sent home to sleep
2. spent a night in the lab but were allowed to take short naps
3. spent a night in the lab but weren’t allowed to nap at all (I don’t know about you, but this would not be my preferred group allocation – sleep is important to me!)

In the morning, the participants reassembled and were asked to complete the same set of thinking tasks from the night before. So, what did the researchers find out? 

Sleep specialist Dr David Cunnigton says that in general, we all tend to be a bit sleep deprived.

The study suggests power naps can’t replace a full night of sleep

The study author and director of the lab said, “the group that stayed overnight and took short naps still suffered from the effects of sleep deprivation and made significantly more errors on the tasks than their counterparts who went home and obtained a full night of sleep.”

While parents of young children who always feel tired could have predicted this result, an additional interesting finding was that for every 10-minute increase in slow wave sleep (SWS), participants reduced their errors in the thinking tasks by nearly 4%. 

For people who regularly have to work while sleep deprived (think surgeons, police officers and truck drivers) the implications of reducing errors by 4% are potentially huge. 

For every 10-minute increase in slow wave sleep (SWS), participants reduced their errors in the thinking tasks by nearly 4%.

Don’t scrap the power nap just yet

While this was an interesting study, it does have its limitations. For example, study participants' sleep was assessed using movement sensors attached to the wrist. However, the ‘gold standard’ for recording sleep is to use polysomnography, which can record brain waves, blood-oxygen levels, heart rate, breathing rate and body movement. 

So, if you've tried all the sleep hacks, worn the blue light sleep protection glasses, experimented with how to sleep better and figured out what sleep hygiene means and you're still tired, give a power nap a try.

Related:

• Do hormones affect my sleep? 
• Sleep for women: how to get better rest and improve your health
• Why do we snore and how can you prevent it?

Reviewed by the healthylife Advisory Board October 2021.