I’ve just noticed, that when I take a nap, my body wakes myself up within 1 – 2 hours. This is probably true for everyone else too. But our bodies allow us to sleep for 8 hours at night. Why can’t our bodies nap for a full 8 hours without waking up? How does our body know this? How does our body differentiate between napping vs a nights sleep?
In: Biology
So to EIL to start: Short naps only rest your body but not your brain. To get good “brain sleep” your body needs to rest for over an hour, and some people need 2 hours. Yor body is waiting to wake you until you get some solid “brain sleep”.
And adult explanation: Your body goes thru four stages during a sleep cycle. Only the last stage is the REM stage (Rapid Eye Movement) where you are actively dreaming. This stage is necessary for lots of brain things. We don’t fully understand them all but things like clear thinking and creating long-term memories won’t occur if you don’t get REM sleep.
The stages vary by person, but the first three take about 30 to 70 minutes to finish. Then the full REM stage will last from 15 to 60 minutes. So completing a full sleep cycle takes 1 to 2 hours (depending on your personal biology). So during your “day naps” your body is waking you up after it has competed a full sleep cycle. At night your body is completes the cycles multiple times, allowing you get to up for bathroom breaks or to roll over and steal the blanket from your partner between stages. This is important to know as five 20 little naps DO NOT equal an 80 minute sleep session. Use 20 min naps to relax your body. Use 1 to 2 hour naps to reset your brain and replace missed sleep at night (and maybe risk falling asleep 2 hours later tonight).
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