Instant Genius - Better Sleep: The hidden power of napping

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Be it a brief power nap to help perk us up, a Sunday afternoon kip after a big lunch, or a traditional daily Spanish siesta, many of us put our heads down for a short period during the day. But where does this habit come from and is it actually good for our health? In this episode, part of our four-part Better Sleep miniseries, we speak to Valentina Paz, a psychologist based at the Universidad de la República in Uruguay and University College London. She tells us how taking naps can help to boost our attention and energy, what the ideal time for a nap actually is, and speaks about her research on the long-term protective effects that napping can have on our brains. To get the exclusive gift box from Shokz, order via this link: https://bit.ly/4kFt10l Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Every Monday and Friday, you'll hear a world-leading scientists and experts talking about the most fascinating ideas in science and technology today. I'm Jason Goodyear, commissioning editor at BBC Science Focus. Beard a brief power nap to help perk us up, a Sunday afternoon, Kip after a big lunch, or a traditional daily Spanish siesta. Many of us put our heads down for a short period during the day. But where does this habit come from? And is it actually good for our health?

In this episode, we speak to Valentina Path, a psychologist based at the Universidad de la Republica in Uruguay and University College London. She tells us how taking naps can boost our attention and energy, what the ideal time for a nap actually is, and speaks about her research on the long-term protective effects that napping can have on our brains. So welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you so much for the invitation. So today we're talking all about napping. So it's something most people will be familiar with.

But what do we actually mean by the term nap? Yeah, exactly. We can say that nap is like a brief daytime boost of sleep. But it's an universal behavior, like everyone nap sometimes. So, yeah, it's something that is a worldwide behavior. Is there a certain sort of range of time that you have a nap for? Yeah, most children and their three years old nap. And then napping is like less common under like school age and adulthood. And then naps raise.

again in older adults and we can say that different people nap differently like some people nap for like 10 15 minutes some people nap like half an hour or even like one hour or longer is totally depending on the person so is there an ideal time in the day to take a nap so like a lot of us in europe we know about the spanish they have what they call a siesta yeah in the the afternoon. Is that an ideal time? Yeah, exactly. It is usually recommended that people nap after lunch, especially because after we eat, we feel like this sleepiness that they need for a quick nap. And at the same time, it is better to nap away from nighttime sleep in order not to would like affect nighttime sleep. So the best way is to do it like after lunch, a quick nap,

and then start the day and then. So you mentioned there nighttime sleep. So typically that goes through a series of different phases that have different effects on us. So is there enough time for that sort of physiological process to happen when we do take one of these short naps? Yes, exactly. It depends on the length. For example, if you take a nap for like 10, 20 minutes, it's typically non-rem sleep, like stage one, stage two. But if you now for half an hour, you may enter like the other stage that is stage three,

that is a slow wave sleep, that is a deeper stage. And for you to have like a full cycle of sleep, you need to sleep like 90 minutes or more, and in that way you could enter REM sleep. So the full cycle is 90 minutes. So it's dependent on the length, and because of that, it's recommended to do a short nap in order to not to go to REM sleep.

That is like a deeper sleep stage, and then when you wake up, you feel like less alert, like maybe like with like groginess and this type stage that is not recommended. So how about the variation between different people? So first off with age. So for example, you mentioned they're eating a meal. So I always remember my grandfather come to visit us for a Christmas dinner and they'd immediately fall asleep afterwards.

So does it vary by age? Yeah, exactly. is most more common in children and then in older adults that is related to sleep in general, like sleep change across our lifespan. For example, people with like 65 years old or more usually don't need that much sleep in the night. But maybe because of like social pressures or like maybe they are not working anymore and with less activities, they prefer. to take a nap in the day. So how about genetics?

Does that affect our tendency to nap? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. For sleep in general, we know that there is a genetic component. Recently, there are these huge studies that are called a genome-wide association studies that try to find, discover genetic variants associated with different phenotypes and different variables. And recently there are some of these studies that found genetic variants associated with sleep and with napping 2.

For example, in a recent study that we did with the University College London and University of Liverpool and Harvard University, we used some of these variants to understand the association between napping and brain health. Yeah, so like personally, I can't really do it. If I really tired and I have a say 15 minute nap, I wake up feeling absolutely exhausted. So do we know anything about that? Yeah, some studies mention that it depends on the person and people who usually nap maybe are more for them. Napping is more beneficial than for people who struggle to nap. So it depends, of course, on the person, but if you want to nap, you could, like, improve it in a way as every behavior.

You can, like, practice, do it consistently, finding, like, the right conditions in terms of a suitable temperature, minimum light, not a reduce noise in the environment. And you can, like, practice how to do it properly. So let's go on to, like you mentioned there, the benefits. So in your study, you found that people who take regular naps had a larger brain volume. So that's fascinating. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, we were very surprised with that finding too, because we want to know if data inapping was associated with total brain volume, but also hypocampal volume and cognitive function in general. We found specifically that habitual napping was associated with larger total brain volume.

And we know that through lifespan, there are like reductions in brain volume that is expected, this normal aging. But this finding could tell us that napping is protecting against like this reduction that is normal, but it's usually accelerated in people with like dementia, Alzheimer's disease. So we were really surprised, and this is like for us a finding that allows us to continue researching on this topic and understanding if really napping is like a protective behavior for dementia, or if there is anything in between, like other behavior. related to that, that leads to this fine.

So do we know anything about the mechanism that that effect is caused by? We don't know exactly, but we know that people with sleep disturbance are at risk of neurodegenerative disorders. And some scientists says that maybe these disturbances are leading to inflammation, synaptic damage, like synaptic damage in the brain. So that leads to this neurotation, et cetera, disorders such as dementia. So sleep is the mechanism through why this disease is a bit.

So maybe a difficult question. Do we know which way around that is? So is it the fact that somebody with these, like, sleep habits, is more prone to dementia or Alzheimer's or other? neurodegenerative diseases or do the neurodegenerative diseases cause that problem with the sleep? Yeah, we are not sure yet. We are trying to understand exactly the mechanism and if it's a bidirectional association or it's only one way to the other. Our study was trying to understand if napping was associated with brain health in that direction, but we know that having this disorder

could affect sleep. So probably it's a bidirectional association, but as understanding causal associations, it's really difficult you need to do it with first, like with special techniques, and then you need to do it with different populations, trying to replicate your results in different ages, different ancestry.

So it's really difficult to really find the answer, and you need to do it like, a lot of studies in different countries and in order to have like a consistent answer. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building. Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Studies and play.

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Yeah, we know that short naps can boost alarmness, concentration, mood also. So for some people, having an app could improve performance afterwards. But on the other way around, for example, longer naps are usually associated with underlying health issues, could be physical issues, for example, an autoimmune disease or something like that, or even mental health problems such as depression. So the timing is not only about like when you take the nap is usually more about the duration of the nap. Short naps, like power naps are usually good for health,

good for cognition, not for everyone, but for most people. But longer naps are usually telling us about an underlying health problem. So you've just reminded me of something there, that something that I've heard about called a, a micro nap where someone holds something in their hand falls asleep, then the hand relaxes and wakes them up. And they say that that can boost their sort of alertness in cognition. Is there any truth to that? I don't know. I never heard of that. But yeah, maybe it's like a mechanism to like wake up quickly

and not being asleep that much. Because yeah, that power nap that people always tell that it's five, ten minutes is that, it's exactly that. You sort of touch on this, but are there any sort of negative effects from napping? Like, you mentioned their depression. I know that people that struggle with depression, they often get sleepier than other people. Yeah, exactly. Depression in particular is strongly associated with sleep problems, insomnia mostly.

And yeah, usually if you take long naps regularly, you may find harder to fall sleep at night. And this is particularly problematic in people with like insomnia or depression or problems like that. So frequent or excessive data kidnapping could be a sign of poor sleep at night, even sleep amnia, for example, or other health problems. And the problem itself is that it may provide like a short-term relief for the person who takes the nap to feel, better, but usually delay the proper diagnosis or even the treatment. How about people taking multiple naps in a day? So we're talking largely about just like we mentioned the siesta, the famous siesta, just one in

the afternoon. Is that a sign of anything? Yeah, probably we need to like analyze every person and their lifestyle and underlying health issues and other things, like usually having a lot of naps in the day, maybe the consequence of having a poor night's sleep. For example, as I said before, people with sleep amnia usually wake up a lot of times in the night. So then for them, it's impossible to be awake in the middle of the day.

So let's have a look into the future then. What things would you like to study and to figure out about this? Yeah, for me this is like a really fascinating topic. Sleep in general, because as I said, it's an universal behavior. Everyone sleeps sometimes. It's something that at the same time, we can change that behavior if we want and we follow some advices, we can modify sleep. So it's a modifying factor that if we know that affects, for example, health,

can prevent that in advance changing sleep. So for me is one of the questions that I have and I want to think further and do some research about that is if a napping is beneficial, for example, for shift workers or people that work in the night, for example, because these type of workers are really affected by their schedules. So we know that people that work in the night and cheap workers have a lot of health issues as a consequence of their schedules. So we want to know if in this particular population napping could be like a way of diminish the other health impacts. And at the same time, I'm a psychologist, so I really want to know about mental health and how to improve mental health outcomes.

And in that sense, I'm trying to understand how exactly is the link between sleep and mental health and what we can do to change sleep in order to improve mental health outcomes. So, as one final question, what's the sort of takeaway message that you'd like to leave our listeners with about napping? Okay, yeah, it's a great question. For me, there are like two things. One is that not everyone needs to have an app. It depends on the person, your needs having a power map. We know that it's beneficial, but maybe not for everyone. We are trying to understand that. So it's not a thing that we recommend that you need to force the app. You need to think if it's beneficial for you or not. And the other thing is that we, like my group and I believe that sleep is really important. And sometimes people like think about nutrition and think about exercise, but forget about sleep. And some people think that sleeping is like a waste of time. I need to be more productive.

So I need to sleep like four hours in the night in order to do other things. and we know that having poor sleep, having like a short sleep duration, and even long sleep duration is associated with a lot of health outcomes in the long term. Even with diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular issues. So it's really important to focus on having a good nighttime sleep. Thank you for listening to this episode of Insen Genius, brought you from the team behind BBC Science Focus. That was Valentina Path. If you liked what you just heard,

then please do consider subscribing to Instant Genius on your preferred podcast platform. If you'd like to see our guests and hosts in person, then please also check out our YouTube channel at ScienceFocus. The current issue of BBC ScienceFocus magazine is out now. Pick up a copy wherever you buy your favourite magazines or download us on your app store of choice.

You can also find us on Apple News or online at sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have digital precision with analogue warmth. Alongside French acoustic specialist vocal, Name creates high-end audio systems combining innovation with craftsmanship, so you can listen to music, just as the artist intended. Discover more at Name Audio.com.

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