By Haiting TanSPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE
Surprised to see how many students were staying up studying in the library, Adrain Bazbaz, a junior studying at the University of Michigan, came up with the idea of a napping station at UM’s Shapiro Undergraduate Library. Now there are six vinyl cots and disposable pillowcases placed on the first floor of the library that is open 24/7.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, 63 percent of college students in this country suffer from mild to severe insomnia or sleep deprivation problems, so college-aged students look forward to taking naps in between classes. This could be a result of having a night out with friends, staying up late to complete assignments or to study for tests and having roommates with different nightly routines. Unbeknownst to us is that taking naps has many disadvantages.
First of all, lack of sleep hinders cognitive processes such as thinking and learning. Secondly, it could impair attention, alertness, concentration, reasoning and problem solving and therefore, would lead to poor grades in class. The consequences of lack of sleep resemble those of students who binge drink or use marijuana, except its effects have been overlooked.
Lastly, we believe that taking naps would make up for the loss of sleep the night before, but it actually messes up your internal clock. It becomes more and more difficult for you to fall asleep at night and therefore, you have to rely on naps to make it through the day.
While many of us have a misconception that taking a mid-day nap would boost our energy, a long nap could actually lead to sleep inertia, and you would potentially wake up feeling more tired than you did before shutting your eyes. Daytime sleepiness could be a sign of underlying disease or a problem that could eventually lead to early death.
A study conducted in China, where taking a post-lunch nap is very common, found that for those who napped for more than 30 minutes were at a higher risk of developing type two diabetes.
In addition to this, in a study conducted by the American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers followed over 16,000 volunteers in Britain, where napping is uncommon, and discovered that those who reported napping less than an hour a day had a 14 percent increased risk of dying. As for those who reportedly napped for more than an hour, the risk went up by 32 percent.
Most researches have discovered that power naps that last for approximately 10-20 minutes are a lot more effective as compared to a 60- or 90-minute long nap. This is because you will only enter non-REM sleep, and it will give you a boost in energy levels and alertness. Since your sleep is not deep, you will be able to wake up easily without feeling groggy.
However, some argue that such a short amount of sleep would not be able to sustain one’s energy level and hence, is ineffective.
The benefits and disadvantages of napping and its duration remains a highly-debated topic, but the bottomline is if you are fit, healthy and sleeping well, your body will not need that nap. Remember that naps are not meant to replace a lack of sleep from the night before, and that using them in that way could pose a risk to our health.
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