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Are Naps Good for You?

scientificamerican.com

41–50 of 64 posts

Re: Are Naps Good for You?

#42

Rather than naps, I can personally recommend yoga nidra, AKA non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) meditation. There's no effort involved. You just lie down and listen to an audio track. Lots of tracks available on YouTube and Spotify. With yoga nidra, you stay awake and get just as recharged from a good nap but without the risk of waking up groggy. It's a game changer. If you're interested in the science behind it, Andrew Hube…

Why you need to follow specific techniques just to relax? They sound like more work and skill obsession. You know, you can just lay low and relax...

You don't need to learn any new techniques. That's why NSDR / yoga nidra is useful. You just listen to a track. No breathing techniques or anything required. Same idea I guess as listening to music for productivity or workouts. Do you need it? Nope. But it helps.

Re: Are Naps Good for You?

#43

Rather than naps, I can personally recommend yoga nidra, AKA non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) meditation. There's no effort involved. You just lie down and listen to an audio track. Lots of tracks available on YouTube and Spotify. With yoga nidra, you stay awake and get just as recharged from a good nap but without the risk of waking up groggy. It's a game changer. If you're interested in the science behind it, Andrew Hube…

Andrew Huberman, the same guy who panders chewing on a rubber ball to change your “face shape”?

Yeah, the same guy who "heard from a cardiologist buddy" of his that 'no amount of exercise offsets the damage of sitting for 6-7 hours a days' (absolute bullshit icydk).

Re: Are Naps Good for You?

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that you shouldn't be groggy if you limit your naps to less than 20 minutes.

But, how do you limit your naps to 20 minutes? What if it takes 19 minutes to fall asleep and then your alarm goes off after 1 minute of sleep?

Sometimes you know how long you usually need to fall asleep, for me it's 5-10 min or I am not falling asleep (for a nap). So I set the timer to 35min.

Re: Are Naps Good for You?

#45

Rather than naps, I can personally recommend yoga nidra, AKA non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) meditation. There's no effort involved. You just lie down and listen to an audio track. Lots of tracks available on YouTube and Spotify. With yoga nidra, you stay awake and get just as recharged from a good nap but without the risk of waking up groggy. It's a game changer. If you're interested in the science behind it, Andrew Hube…

Why you need to follow specific techniques just to relax? They sound like more work and skill obsession. You know, you can just lay low and relax...

For many of us, just laying down to "relax" tends mean either scrolling through news, or closing our eyes and getting lost in racing thoughts while trying to resist the urge to take out our phone scroll through news...

Obviously, that's not great, so strategies to relax more naturally can be really helpful.

Saying "just relax, it's natural" is like saying "just be a marathon runner, it's natural". Both may be true, but in 2023 it can take some work and help for us to get back to those natural abilities.

There's a reason mindfulness and meditation is a thing people do for mental health. If we could all easily just, you know, chill out, then a lot of issues people face with anxiety and stress wouldn't exist :)

Re: Are Naps Good for You?

#46

Our bodies are pretty good at telling us what it needs. Drink when you're thirsty and nap when you're drowsy. The problem we find, which elicits articles like this, is that our 'work environment' is not conducive to adhoc relaxation.

You're absolutely right, one additional point though is that if you're drowsy right now napping is good, but you should also maybe reflect on what's making you drowsy. That carb heavy meal you had? Better scale those down, it's not good for you. The alcohol you had last night that disturbed your sleep (even one beer is enough for that)? Not good for you.

Napping is the right thing to do right now, but there might be overarching changes you should do in your behavior to not be drowsy tomorrow.

Re: Are Naps Good for You?

#47

Our bodies are pretty good at telling us what it needs. Drink when you're thirsty and nap when you're drowsy. The problem we find, which elicits articles like this, is that our 'work environment' is not conducive to adhoc relaxation.

> Our bodies are pretty good at telling us what it needs. Drink when you're thirsty and nap when you're drowsy.

On average, maybe. While the science of how to reproducibly measure the variations is still fairly young, there's evidence that the accuracy/responsiveness of the underlying signals, the baseline intensity of the sensations, and the ability to integrate those sensations into an actionable concept like "thirsty" or "drowsy" all exist on a spectrum [1].

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6054486/

Re: Are Naps Good for You?

#48

Rather than naps, I can personally recommend yoga nidra, AKA non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) meditation. There's no effort involved. You just lie down and listen to an audio track. Lots of tracks available on YouTube and Spotify. With yoga nidra, you stay awake and get just as recharged from a good nap but without the risk of waking up groggy. It's a game changer. If you're interested in the science behind it, Andrew Hube…

Not saying you're wrong, but isn't it strange to respond to an article that attempts to answer a question by summarizing several scientific studies, with something akin to "ignore that, do this instead"?

Re: Are Naps Good for You?

#49
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Andrew Huberman, the same guy who panders chewing on a rubber ball to change your “face shape”?

Yeah, the same guy who "heard from a cardiologist buddy" of his that 'no amount of exercise offsets the damage of sitting for 6-7 hours a days' (absolute bullshit icydk).

you’re mocking his weak references but you’re not offering one yourself

Re: Are Naps Good for You?

#50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that you shouldn't be groggy if you limit your naps to less than 20 minutes.

But, how do you limit your naps to 20 minutes? What if it takes 19 minutes to fall asleep and then your alarm goes off after 1 minute of sleep?

> What if it takes 19 minutes to fall asleep and then your alarm goes off after 1 minute of sleep?

That's a successful nap.

IME there's not much difference between 1 minute of sleep and 15 minutes. Both give me a similar recharge. I think a large part of it is relaxing enough to actually fall asleep.

https://www.livescience.com/little-known-sleep-stage-may-be-...

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