One thing to know about me, I love my sleep. No exaggerating here folks. I make sure to get a minimum of eight hours of sleep a night. I don’t care if I have to miss plans to catch some extras z’s, I will do it. Now, remember that I said to sleep at night. When it comes to sleeping during the day… Well, that’s where I’m not as strict. Me and naps rarely ever go together. If I nap, it’s probably because I had a VERY bad day and I cried my heart out. There’s just something about sleeping after you cry that is just immaculate. The way my classes are set up, I have at most three classes a day. There’s one day of the week when I just have one class for the whole day. Before classes started, I told myself that this day would be when I would take my naps. After my class, I change into my comfy clothes and stay in bed for the remainder of the day. It’s currently almost two months deep into classes and I have yet to take a nap at any time of the week.
It’s not that I’m not tired, it’s just that there’s always something to do. I am the type of person who finds it hard to relax during the week. I need to constantly be doing something to feel productive. Which, I know, is really bad and it’s something I need to work on.
So, before trying to take a nap, I did a little research on the pros of taking naps in between classes, so you’re welcome. Here they are:
- Before class – Gives you an extra boost of energy
A lot of us have eight am classes, so this doesn’t help us. But, for those that have ten in the morning classes, this is for you. Studies have shown that taking a nap reduces grogginess and gives your mind a fresh boost of energy. Well, of course, because you’re resting. The sweet spot duration of a nap is about 26 minutes. Short naps before classes can improve motor skills and can help give a boost to one’s mental state.
- After class – Helps with memory
Classes can be a lot. Students are constantly being bombarded with new information that we have to retain. That’s why we have to keep studying to make sure we remember the new information. But, what about if I told you that napping can be a part of your studying session? It’s shown that if someone naps for between 45 and 75 minutes, it can greatly enhance one’s short-term memory. This means that when you wake up, you will still remember that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.
- Aids with emotions
Personally, I am prone to mood swings, especially during that time of the month. Now with the addition of classes, I can go through a million emotions throughout an hour. Sad because of a grade, nervous because of an exam, happy because the dining hall finally fixed the vanilla cappuccino machine, all types of emotions. Napping can help alleviate some of the mood swings. Napping helps with stress due to an increase in the hormone norepinephrine, which levels out the effect of stress on one’s body. After taking a quick 20-minute nap you will most likely wake up in a better mood and not as stressed.
- Your nighttime sleep will thank you
One thing that sucks about napping is that it can make you want to stay up later since you already napped and you feel refreshed. However, one should still go to sleep at regular times to make sure that the nap even helped. For example, you went to sleep at eleven pm and you slept for six hours last night. You wake up feeling exhausted, so after your class, you take an hour’s nap. When nine-thirty hits, you don’t want to go to sleep since you feel fine. It causes you to again not go to sleep till eleven-thirty pm and the cycle starts all over again. Make sure that naps are added to the hours, not substituting the hours.
- Beauty sleep is a real thing
Has anyone ever heard of the “Freshman Fifteen”? It’s basically a little saying that freshmen at college gain weight their first year. This can be due to having unhealthy snacks laying around your dorm and being able to reach for them whenever. A hormone called “Ghrelin”, more affectionately known as the “hunger hormone”, is tied to one’s sleep cycle. If a person gets the recommended sleep hours (between seven to nine hours a night), their ghrelin levels are severely depleted, making them feel more full. So bye-bye to those extra unnecessary pounds!
There you have it, that’s why naps are always the best. So the next time one of your friends complains that you’re always sleeping, you have some cold hard facts to show them!