Why do naps last 1 – 2 hours, but we can sleep for 8 hours straight at night?

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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

25 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

You should not take naps that long. Naps exceeding a hour can disrupt your sleeping at night. Then to your main question in order to sleep we use a thing called the circadian rhythms it is a clock in our brains that tells us when there is less light to sleep. Our ancestors needed to stay awake during the day so this clock helped them be attentive until it was necessary to sleep.

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