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Why do you feel so terrible after a nap in the day?


ThaHoward

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So when I fell asleep during day, I usually feel crappy when I wake. And with this weird feeling in the body, kinda hurt in a way, and also a little dizzy :P And I have heard from others that waking up after sleeping during the day is terrible.

So why is it like this? And isn't the human body actually designed to sleep during the day (around 1400/2 PM to be precise)?

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Waist of Thyme

For me, taking a nap is actually the best cure for a bad mood. The inside of my mouth usually feels weird when I wake up from one, though.

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Guest Melmoth.

I have to say I often feel the same if I take a nap during the day, wake up feeling worse than I did before and dizzy. I'm going out tonight and was thinking about having a little nap but think I might just leave it to be honest :p

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Because you sleep in cycles and if you interrupt one of those cycles (which, napping does) you make yourself feel gross. If you're going to nap, you shouldn't sleep more than 10-20 minutes so you don't enter the deeper sleep.

2. Napping only makes you more tired

Fact: Some people swear that quick naps make them sleepier, but a snooze that's less than 20 minutes should perk most of us up. "Just 10 to 20 minutes is all you need to get the benefits of napping, such as alertness, improved performance, and better mood," says Kimberly A. Cote, PhD, a sleep researcher at Brock University in Ontario. Here's why: During sleep, your brain produces different kinds of waves, which correspond to how deeply you sleep. After about 20 minutes, the sleeping brain may move into what's called slow-wave sleep, which is the deepest phase of sleep. If you nap too long, you may feel groggy and disoriented upon awakening instead of refreshed because long naps are more likely to contain deep slow-wave sleep.

When you nap also matters. "A power nap should be early in the day so it doesn't interfere with your ability to fall asleep at bedtime," says David Neubauer, MD, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Sleep Disorders Center. Most people's inner body clocks trigger drowsiness somewhere between 1 and 4 PM. (Stuck at work? Check out How To Nap At Work to sneak some shut-eye in.)

Energy fix: To make naps a daily ritual, doze off faster by using something you associate with sleep (a favorite pillow or lavender eye mask). Also, nap in a comfortable chair or couch instead of your bed to avoid the temptation to doze for too long, so you don't wake up with a sleep hangover.

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Try drinking more water, I've found that when I'm tired during the day I'm usually dehydrated and need more water. It almost always makes me feel a lot better.

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Vyanni Krace

I feel bad whenever I sleep during the day too, so I try to avoid it, which isn't too hard really, considering I don't sleep much at all anyway.

One time I was feeling sick, so I was resting on my parents bed (because its bigger and comfier and generally nicer) and I accidentally dozed off. I woke up a few hours later feeling even more sick than before.

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5_♦♣

What is a nap, other than pan spelled backwards?

Seriously, I don't nap. I find it impossible to fall asleep during the day, no matter how tired I am.

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Same here, usually after a nap I'll have a headache and feel like crap. If it's 1-2 hours, I often have a terrible headache. More rested, but worse otherwise. Only occasionally does one refresh me and leave me pleased I took one.

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I fell awesome after taking a nap. maybe the bad feeling comes from the short sleep cycle confusing the brain patterns or something? Felling not good can also come from what position you sleep in and what you are sleeping on.

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Touchofinsight

20 minute naps sound great, but it takes me longer then that to fall asleep so its pointless for me. I am the type who'd rather push myself to stay up so that when I lay in bed I fall asleep ASAP.

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yes, i am the same in that those naps during the day just leave ,me feeling very groggy when i get up from them

and then i also feel like i wasted hours of reading time with that which makes me feel worse.

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I get a headache when I fall asleep during the day. If I manage to sleep all day and all night it feels like I have something like lag in my body. I have no idea why this occurs.

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You need to allow yourself to reach REM sleep, otherwise you'll feel physically tired when you wake up... well, most of the time. REM sleep is actually the ideal state in which you want to wake up.

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The bad feeling I have isn't groggyness or anything minor like that. I actually like that half-awake state and how I relate with the world slightly differently then. I'm going to pay more attention the next time I nap and note whether the temperature, covers, etc. are "wrong" and how I feel afterwards.

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I suppose it depends on what your napping habits are. I personally dislike sleeping anytime other than at night for a number of reasons: first, if I do doze off during the day, it makes it a lot harder for me to get any sleep at night at all. Second, my daytime routine would be quite messed up if I did nap, considering I wouldn't know how long I'd end up napping. I generally dislike sleeping because it means taking time off which could otherwise be used proficiently... but that's just my intellectually-hyperactive mindset speaking (also the mindset of someone who wants more free time :P).

I do "nap" for about 5-10 minutes a day when I study for over 6-7 consecutive hours, around 2-3PM. I just close my eyes for a few minutes without actually sleeping and rest. As silly as it sounds, it does wonders to my concentration - after a few minutes I "wake up" I can feel a decent increase in energy and a remarkable decrease in sleepiness, even with such a little sleeping time spent.

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Blood-of-Cherries

I like taking a nap but only when I'm really tired.

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My sleep cycle is fraked up completely, I sleep at the most random of times varying from week to week... but one thing I've consistently noticed is that when I lay down to sleep, I shouldn't plan to get up in the next four hours or so again - I either go sleep for real, or I end up feeling like my brains (and sometimes, stomach) went through a mangler when I get up. -_-

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Working two nights a week, I don't actually have a sleep cycle - I sleep as and when I can. I have no difficulty sleeping in snatches of maybe a couple of hours at a time, getting up picking my son up from work and returning to bed for another couple of hours. Just what you get used to I guess :)

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Working two nights a week, I don't actually have a sleep cycle - I sleep as and when I can. I have no difficulty sleeping in snatches of maybe a couple of hours at a time, getting up picking my son up from work and returning to bed for another couple of hours. Just what you get used to I guess :)

I envy that capability, actually. :P I have a really hard time regulating my sleep cycles and could only accustom myself to sleeping from midnight to 8 AM after about two or three months of forcing myself to bed, or forcing myself out of bed, at the right hours!

I also have trouble falling asleep, no matter what hour I go to sleep at, unless I'm really tired (e.g. late in the morning). Which is part of why I avoid napping. If I had a nap in the first place, my sleeping times would be completely wrecked.

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Because you sleep in cycles and if you interrupt one of those cycles (which, napping does) you make yourself feel gross. If you're going to nap, you shouldn't sleep more than 10-20 minutes so you don't enter the deeper sleep.

2. Napping only makes you more tired

Fact: Some people swear that quick naps make them sleepier, but a snooze that's less than 20 minutes should perk most of us up. "Just 10 to 20 minutes is all you need to get the benefits of napping, such as alertness, improved performance, and better mood," says Kimberly A. Cote, PhD, a sleep researcher at Brock University in Ontario. Here's why: During sleep, your brain produces different kinds of waves, which correspond to how deeply you sleep. After about 20 minutes, the sleeping brain may move into what's called slow-wave sleep, which is the deepest phase of sleep. If you nap too long, you may feel groggy and disoriented upon awakening instead of refreshed because long naps are more likely to contain deep slow-wave sleep.

When you nap also matters. "A power nap should be early in the day so it doesn't interfere with your ability to fall asleep at bedtime," says David Neubauer, MD, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Sleep Disorders Center. Most people's inner body clocks trigger drowsiness somewhere between 1 and 4 PM. (Stuck at work? Check out How To Nap At Work to sneak some shut-eye in.)

Energy fix: To make naps a daily ritual, doze off faster by using something you associate with sleep (a favorite pillow or lavender eye mask). Also, nap in a comfortable chair or couch instead of your bed to avoid the temptation to doze for too long, so you don't wake up with a sleep hangover.

Read more: http://www.prevention.com/health/sleep-energy/9-sleep-myths-make-you-tired/2-napping-only-makes-you-more-tired#ixzz2VY4N8sBn

Hah! My naps on the train to and from work are perfect :D

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Because you sleep in cycles and if you interrupt one of those cycles (which, napping does) you make yourself feel gross. If you're going to nap, you shouldn't sleep more than 10-20 minutes so you don't enter the deeper sleep.

2. Napping only makes you more tired

Fact: Some people swear that quick naps make them sleepier, but a snooze that's less than 20 minutes should perk most of us up. "Just 10 to 20 minutes is all you need to get the benefits of napping, such as alertness, improved performance, and better mood," says Kimberly A. Cote, PhD, a sleep researcher at Brock University in Ontario. Here's why: During sleep, your brain produces different kinds of waves, which correspond to how deeply you sleep. After about 20 minutes, the sleeping brain may move into what's called slow-wave sleep, which is the deepest phase of sleep. If you nap too long, you may feel groggy and disoriented upon awakening instead of refreshed because long naps are more likely to contain deep slow-wave sleep.

When you nap also matters. "A power nap should be early in the day so it doesn't interfere with your ability to fall asleep at bedtime," says David Neubauer, MD, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Sleep Disorders Center. Most people's inner body clocks trigger drowsiness somewhere between 1 and 4 PM. (Stuck at work? Check out How To Nap At Work to sneak some shut-eye in.)

Energy fix: To make naps a daily ritual, doze off faster by using something you associate with sleep (a favorite pillow or lavender eye mask). Also, nap in a comfortable chair or couch instead of your bed to avoid the temptation to doze for too long, so you don't wake up with a sleep hangover.

Hmm that is really interesting! I only wonder how I will be able to time it correctly :P As I do not fall asleep at once :P Then it will be difficult to set the alarm for when to wake up :lol:

Do you have any tips?

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Simple explanation: sleep inertia.

To simplify this incredibly: your brain has two main sleep states -- 'light' sleep, and deep sleep. Waking up from light sleep is incredibly easy, and it takes mere seconds before you're functional again. Waking up from deep sleep takes much longer -- quite a lot of your brain has to re-initialise before it's fully functional again.

And if you wake up during deep (or slow-wave) sleep, you feel absolutely awful for the half hour or so it takes for your brain to wake up properly and resume functioning. That's sleep inertia.

Anyway, about these 'cycles' that exist -- basically, during sleep, your body alternates in and out of deep sleep. During the first 4 or so hours, they're not very regular at all -- the first cycle can last up to 4 hours in some cases, although they average out to 1.5 hours each towards the end of a 7-8 hour night.

It's not about 'breaking' the cycle, strictly speaking (technically, any sort of waking up breaks the cycle), but where you break the cycle. If you're woken in the middle of a cycle (when you're in deep sleep), then you'll feel like a pile of sh!t.

How long it takes you to transition between light and deep sleep depends on a lot of things including how tired you are and how you respond to sleep. So it'll vary (and there's no hard-and-fast rule) but between 20-30 minutes seems to be the ballpark figure.

Get an alarm clock and experiment. That's all there is to it.

If you have a smartphone with an accelerometer, you can get apps which use the accelerometer to measure your body movement to determine which phase of sleep you're in -- while I've found them to be effective for usage for a full night (upwards of 6 hours, so the app can actually get some data), they tend to be less effective for short naps.

So, alarm clock.

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If you have a smartphone with an accelerometer, you can get apps which use the accelerometer to measure your body movement to determine which phase of sleep you're in -- while I've found them to be effective for usage for a full night (upwards of 6 hours, so the app can actually get some data), they tend to be less effective for short naps.

Very interesting. I already knew about slow-wave sleep and sleep cycles, and a friend told me about this smartphone app as well. Has it worked for you? Is it available for older phones as well? I have an old Samsung S5230 and, seeing how my sleep cycles don't cooperate well in cold seasons, I could use one such tool. :)

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If you have a smartphone with an accelerometer, you can get apps which use the accelerometer to measure your body movement to determine which phase of sleep you're in -- while I've found them to be effective for usage for a full night (upwards of 6 hours, so the app can actually get some data), they tend to be less effective for short naps.

Very interesting. I already knew about slow-wave sleep and sleep cycles, and a friend told me about this smartphone app as well. Has it worked for you? Is it available for older phones as well? I have an old Samsung S5230 and, seeing how my sleep cycles don't cooperate well in cold seasons, I could use one such tool. :)

I've tried two (Sleep as Android and Sleeptime by Azumio) and they both work reasonably well. They'll both definitely get you alert enough to drag yourself out of bed, but you still have to do the dragging part manually .-.

It worked fine until I started skipping nights of sleep altogether.

I've used the trial of Sleep as Android (it's awesome), and Sleeptime is free (but glitchy as all hell). Your phone, according to GSMArena, has an accelerometer, so you should be able to run it without issues.

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SorryNotSorry

Strange, I always feel better after a nap. If it made me feel lousy afterward, I wouldn't do it.

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My view of day napping might be a little pointless, as they were usually brought about through the effects of meds. Because of this, there was more of a chance the benefits would be negated. I used to rise (slowly) at midday and by about 2:00 I was hitting the sack for a not so power nap. By the time 6:00 had arrived I had probably taken another two naps, each one being less effective and each one making me feel more terrible. The only positive effect they did have is that they did take away any psychotic symptoms that were torturing me. However, before I was retired from work I did sneak off to the toilets to power nap (don't ask) and that did me the world of good. I usually managed to avoid the dreaded nodding off in front of my monitor which plagued me daily.

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Batman's Ace

I don't have too much of an issue with naps. They're important to me because I don't get enough sleep normally, and napping for half an hour to two hours, depending on how much time I have, is an enormous help. I really wish I had the leisure to figure out what my internal clock is actually set to, because I have some doubts that it's actually twenty-four hours.

The only problem I've observed is when I use an alarm clock to wake up, I sometimes feel sick. I've been attributing that to the strain of my mind being awake and my body being stressed by having to wake up too soon. Or, shorthand, my brain is up but my body's still sleeping.

What I heard is that we're designed to sleep for eight hours, but not in one stretch. More like, four hours, wake up for a little bit and do something, then four more hours. Personally, I'd like to experiment with alternating four hour sleeps with eight hour awakes, but I work, so I can't do that.

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