A new study from Michigan State University’s Sleep and Learning Lab says that a short nap during the day won’t replace a full night’s sleep.
The study, which was published in the journal Sleep, is one of the first to assess the effectiveness of short naps, which are frequently all people have time for in their hectic schedules.
Slow-wave sleep, or SWS, is the most restorative and deepest stage of sleep. It is characterised by high-amplitude, low-frequency brain waves and is the stage of sleep during which your body is at its most relaxed; your muscles are relaxed, and your heart rate and respiration are at their lowest.
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To do their research, the researchers recruited 275 college-aged volunteers.
When participants arrived at MSU’s Sleep and Learning Lab in the evening, they completed cognitive tasks and were then randomly assigned to one of three groups: The first group was sent home to sleep; the second group stayed overnight at the lab and had the option of a 30- or 60-minute nap; and the third group did not nap at all during the deprivation condition.
The following morning, participants returned to the lab to repeat the cognitive tasks, which assessed attention and placekeeping, or the ability to complete a series of steps in a specific order without skipping or repeating any steps — even when interrupted.
The group that stayed overnight and took brief naps continued to suffer from sleep deprivation and made significantly more errors on the tasks than their counterparts who returned home and slept a full night, says the study.
However, each ten-minute increase in SWS reduced errors following interruptions by approximately 4%.
These figures may appear insignificant, but when considering the types of errors that are more likely to occur in sleep-deprived operators — such as surgeons, police officers, or truck drivers — a 4% reduction in errors could potentially save lives, points out the study author.
Individuals with a higher SWS score tended to make fewer errors on both tasks. However, they performed worse than participants who slept, the study highlights.
The study’s author hopes that the findings emphasise the critical nature of sleep prioritization and that naps — even those that include SWS — cannot substitute for a full night’s sleep.
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