The Sleep and Cognition Lab at the National University of Singapore is a multidisciplinary research lab dedicated to improving human cognitive performance, health and wellbeing.
Naps work!
Learn more about
how and why.
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What are the benefits of napping?
Our 2022 meta-analysis found that the benefits of napping were significant and the strongest for vigilance and memory. Over the years, our studies show that naps alleviate sleepiness, improve mood, restore hippocampal function, transform and enhance long-term memory as well as protect short-term memory.
See our publication page for more on how naps benefit us.
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How long should I nap for?
Our 2023 study compared actual sleep duration measured objectively with polysomnography rather than just the amount of time provisioned for the nap. Compared to wake, nap durations ranging from 10 to 60 minutes had clear benefits for positive mood and alertness that lasted up to 4 h post-nap. While even a short 10 min nap is beneficial, a 30 min nap may have the best trade-off between practicality and benefit.
Remember to set aside 5-10 min to fall asleep!
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What time should I nap?
Our 2022 review of 60 experimental studies found that naps between 12 - 4pm all showed benefits upon waking. However, recent work cautions against taking naps too late in the evening as our study found that naps that were later and longer than usual delayed bedtimes and shortened nocturnal sleep that same night.
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Do naps benefit everyone?
In 2020, our study found that naps were especially beneficial for habitual nappers performing a short-term memory task, as it restored the decline that would otherwise have been incurred without a nap. While naps are shown to benefit adolescents, college students, working adults and healthy older adults, some studies suggest that involuntary and long naps in older adults may be associated with adverse associations with health.
Stay tuned for upcoming work from our lab on this topic.
What are naps?
Naps are short periods of sleep that occur outside a main nocturnal period. We differentiate voluntary naps from bouts of uncontrollable and unintended sleep, which may underlie significantly inadequate nocturnal sleep, jetlag, a sleep disorder, or a neurological condition.
Voluntary naps in contrast, serve as an intended midday refresh that can enhance learning and productivity.
PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
Professor Michael W. L. Chee
Director of the Centre for Sleep and Cognition,
NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine
michael.chee@nus.edu.sg
Professor Michael Chee leads a multi-disciplinary centre encompassing sleep science, cognitive neuroscience, brain imaging, machine learning, and public health with the common goal to unlock and sustain human cognitive potential.
His team is currently working to harness and evolve the capacity of iteratively-improved sleep trackers like the Oura Ring used alongside with smartphone-based phenotyping tools, to gather rich longitudinal data about sleep and its benefits at scale.
GET IN TOUCH
Get in touch with us if you'd like to chat!
Ruth Leong works on how sleep affects cognition, health and wellbeing, and particularly on how naps contribute to sleep health. How much sleep do we need to attain our cognitive and emotional goals? To what extent do naps support these goals? Is there an optimal way to schedule your nap? Might this change with different segments of the population?
These are some questions Ruth hopes to answer with her work on napping!