Turns Out, Taking Daytime Naps Is Good For Your Health and I’m Taking One Now
Studies show that taking more naps is good for our health, and they don’t have to tell me twice!
Now I don’t know about y’all, but I LOVE naps! L O V E them! I love sleeping in too, ok… I love to sleep in general!
However, I am not the best at getting enough of it and tend to stay up way later than I probably should (oops).
Since having my son I have been favoring naps more and more, I mean who can resist baby cuddles!?
Our daily schedules get so jam-packed with obligations, work, parenting and so much more!
We only have so many hours in a day, and have to make sacrifices to fit so much into them… usually, that sacrifice is sleep sadly.
But listen up… we have to kick this habit, our health depends on it!
Sleep deprivation doesn’t just make you moody, it can seriously affect your health!
Lack of sleep affects your memory (uh oh), puts you at a higher risk for a heart attack and raises stress levels.
Higher stress levels make us more snappy with coworkers, less productive and also leads to excess weight (who needs a diet when you can just nap LOL).
According to the American Sleep Association, more than 35 percent of adults in the United States report getting less than the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep every night, and fifty to seventy million adults have a sleep disorder.
Sleep needs by age group :
Adult: 7-9 hours
Teenager: 8-10 hours
Child 6-12 : 9-12 hours
Child 3-5: 10-13 hours (including naps)
Child 1-2: 11-14 hours (including naps)
Infants 4-12 months: 12-16 hours (including naps)
American Sleep Association
I am going to take a wild guess and assume most of you reading this aren’t meeting the smallest number on those guidelines.
Now I am not telling you to start going to bed at 8 pm every night, but I am telling you that you should probably start taking naps.
The length and time of day that you schedule your naps has an important role in how effective the results will be.
Experts recommend scheduling your nap in the early afternoon and not napping more than 20-30 minutes; unless you are extremely sleep deprived.
Taking a 20-30 minute nap midday will give you way better results than making another coffee run. Not that you can’t have both!!
