The duration of the snap It is debated over Sunday dinners and in sleepy offices, but fortunately, scientists at NASA have found evidence in favor of this noble habit. Sleep is essential for the brain and neurologists continue to discover the benefits of good rest and the harm caused by sleep disturbances.
Multiple studies have shown that naps provide benefits to brain functions. However, what is the optimal duration of a snap? This is a topic that science continues to study, since sleeping for ten minutes is not the same as a three-hour nap.
Optimal nap duration
In 1994, NASA conducted research to evaluate the impact of a snap planned in neuronal activity and in some key cognitive functions for the performance of complex tasks. The study was carried out on a flight crew of 21 members, divided into two groups: the first, rest, with 12 pilots, and the other, without rest, with 9 remaining members.
Pexels / Ketut Subiyanto
The results showed that the pilots in the rest group took, on average, 5.6 minutes to fall asleep and remained asleep for 25.8 minutes. Planned breaks were shown to be beneficial for pilots’ task performance, but when comparing the effects of Naps, It was discovered that the group that had slept obtained better results in several dimensions compared to the group that did not sleep.
Pexels / Andrea Piacquadio
Research at universities
Various universities have shown that, a snap 10 minutes produced immediate improvements in all dimensions of analysis and some of these benefits were maintained for 155 minutes. A 20-minute rest was associated with improvements that emerged 35 minutes later and lasted up to 125 minutes, and sleeping for 30 minutes produced a period of deterioration in alertness and performance immediately afterwards, followed by improvements that lasted up to 155 minutes.
However, it must be taken into account that the optimal duration of a snap It will depend on the results you want to obtain and the subsequent time in which they are measured. An hour of rest can be effective in improving the brain’s learning function. Nap-dependent learning functions may be similar to improvements seen after sleeping through the night.
