Napping

[tertius]

Sleep cycle length is a highly individual thing, normal variation is between 60 and 120 minutes, but it tends to be fairly constant for a normal person. Recently I have been using a little gizmo called Zeo Mobile http://www.myzeo.com/ that uses EEG from a headband to determine sleep state. As it turns out, for me my sleep cycle length actually changes over the course of the night, starting out about 110 minutes at the beginning, and ending around 75 minutes near the end. This is also very consistent from night to night, within a few minutes each way. Sleep cycles also tend to be different for napping then they do for night time sleeping. Most consistent nappers enter REM immediately after falling asleep for a nap, while most enter deep sleep first when going to bed for the night.

The gizmo takes a bit of getting used to for sleeping, but it only took a couple days for it to feel normal to sleep with it. It has also given me some interesting results, for instance I tend to get about 10 minutes more deep sleep on nights that I train. This makes sense given that deep sleep is most restorative to the body and is when a bunch of hormones like HGH are released. I am also about to start an experiment to see how ZMA effects my sleep cycles too. Well worth the $100 it cost IMHO.

That is fascinating. I'm sorely tempted to do some home science with this device.

[jimmyc]

REM, rapid eye movement, occurs during a an extended sleep and lasts for app. 90-120 mins. It also takes a little while to get into it I read years ago that for naps to do their proper job , they shoud either be around 20-30 minutes long ( before rem occurs) or over 2hrs. long. These times always worked for me during the 17 years that I worked rotating shifts.

[ecj]

Just curious, do you normally sleep a lot? Or ever have trouble staying awake during the day? A friend of mine who has clinical narcolepsy told me that drifting straight into a dream state during a 10 minute nap (which I do) is a symptom of that condition, along with a whole bunch of other maladaptive stuff of course. I've asked other people who cat nap and they've said that they don't dream at all.

Re: the longer naps, Steve do you not find that if you nap for 1-2 hours you wake up super groggy and disoriented afterwards? That's always been my experience.

I usually sleep about 7 hours per night, even on weekends, so with my < 30 min naps if anything I sleep less than the recommended 8 hrs. I'm definitely not narcoleptic. I had a roommate who was, so I know what it looks like.

I'm surprised that no one else you talked to dreams during cat naps. I have the craziest dreams all the time. Just yesterday I had a dream that I had to fight hundreds of zombies in a natural history museum.

I'll have to read a little more about nap science. It feels like pressing the "reset" button on my brain when I cat nap. Pretty awesome.

[Alexis]

Zombies! Awesome!

[philip.h]

I'm surprised that no one else you talked to dreams during cat naps. I have the craziest dreams all the time. Just yesterday I had a dream that I had to fight hundreds of zombies in a natural history museum.

I find that when I am busy/stressed/sleep deprived, I rarely remember my dreams. However when I go on holidays in the country, where it is dark and really quiet at night, and the air is fresh, I have crazy and vivid dreams almost every night.

I'll have to read a little more about nap science. It feels like pressing the "reset" button on my brain when I cat nap. Pretty awesome.

Agreed. When I am in a bad mood, or I can't seem to focus after coming home from work, I find that a short nap does wonders and I wake up feeling much better.