Sound Sleep Guru

All About Naps 

Last week I attended a fascinating conference on napping. After that, I had to dig in more and decided to dedicate a few posts this week to napping. Naps are an under-utilized tactic to enhance performance and facilitate learning, optimal performance, and mood.

First, let’s set the record straight that insomnia and sleep deprivation are different. If you have insomnia, you aren’t necessarily sleep deprived in the manner I’ll be talking about in this post as it pertains to naps.

Naps are built into our physiology. It wasn’t until the industrial revolution when workers started getting paid by the hour that our mid-day slumber started to become devalued as a means to be more productive and make more money.

Our great-great grandparents slept about 10 hours per night while we sleep about 6-7 hours per night, going to be later. Midnight used to be the middle of the night!

Naps can be as performance-enhancing as a period of overnight sleep if timed strategically.

Children who nap perform better academically.

Children who nap have better behavior.

Do you take naps?

‼️Disclaimer‼️ I don’t recommend napping with a baby like this. I was ok with it because I knew my husband was sitting right next to us reading and he knew it was his responsibility to watch her/us.

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