
Also known as napping
thumb|A man napping in a hammock, on a [[patio in Costa Rica]]
Wikidata facts
- Duration
- 1
- Image
- Hammock nap on patio.jpg
Show 3 more facts
- Commons category
- Napping
- hashtag
- nap
- NCI Thesaurus ID
- C113417
Sources (3)
via Wikidata · CC0
~10 min read
Article
16 sectionsContents
- Types of naps
- Purpose classifications
- Duration classifications
- Benefits to napping
- Learning and memory
- Cognitive capacity
- Alertness and fatigue
- Prescribed napping
- Negative effects of napping
- Sleep inertia
- Potential health risks
- Naps across the lifespan
- Best practices
- See also
- References
- External links
thumb|A man napping in a hammock, on a [[patio in Costa Rica]]
A nap is a short period of sleep, typically taken during daytime hours as an adjunct to the usual nocturnal sleep period. Naps are most often taken as a response to drowsiness during waking hours or as a means to supplement before or after loss of sleep. A nap is a form of biphasic or polyphasic sleep, where the latter terms also include longer periods of sleep in addition to one period. There are multiple different types of naps depending on what the user's desired outcome may be or time constraints they may have, and for years, scientists have been investigating the benefits of napping, including the 30-minute nap as well as sleep durations of 1–2 hours. Performance across a wide range of cognitive processes has been tested, and naps have been shown to have various cognitive, physical, and psychosocial benefits.