To nap or not to nap? That is a question a lot of us find ourselves asking regularly. Dr. Carol Ash, a sleep expert at RWJ Barnabas Health in New York, joined TODAY in a segment aired on Feb. 23 to answer a few of our burning questions about sleep.
The short answer is yes to napping, but there are a few caveats. Napping can help you stay healthy, but there's a sweet spot when it comes to how long your naps should be.
As Sheinelle Jones pointed out. "There are a lot of people who will do four hours and then two and think, 'Well, I got six hours total today." Those folks are in for a bit of a rude awakening.
"The nature of sleep is you want to do it [consecutively]," Ash said. But Ash also understands that not everyone is able to hit that sleep sweet spot. And she was quick to point out that naps can help. "Obviously we're all busy so when you don't do that, you offset it with naps," Ash said on TODAY.
So, then, what is the definitive answer on how long to nap?
"Naps are good, but you want to keep it no more than 40 minutes," Ash said on TODAY.
So if you didn't get enough sleep last night, you can boost your health and start paying off some of that sleep debt by napping — but only if you nap less than 40 minutes. If you can't fit that into your daily grind, as Ash noted, napping is great for weekends.
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