Napping: Good or Bad for Your Brain?
by Austin Perlmutter MD
Despite the vast amount of science to the contrary, good sleep is frequently ignored in the conversation about brain health optimization. If prioritizing sleep at night is seen as an afterthought, prioritizing a daytime nap can sometimes appear downright lazy or excessively indulgent. But what does the science tell us about naps and brain health? Should we skip the siesta or build it into our routines?
A brief overview of the nap
Let’s state the obvious: napping is nothing new, nor is it unique to humans (as any dog and cat owner can instantly tell you). Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and Thomas Edison were all nappers, and the famous philosopher Aristotle credited some of his insights to regular naps. Despite the lack of novelty of a nap, there’s still an active debate over whether it’s a good or bad thing that varies between countries, cultures and communities. In Asian countries like China and Japan, napping is encouraged at work, and there’s even a term called “inemuri” in Japan for sleeping during work, an act seen as a positive reflection of working to the point of exhaustion. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in America, despite the introduction of the “power nap” by Dr. James B. Maas, napping at work tends to be poorly received, despite the fact that some large companies are instituting a more nap-friendly culture.
