Napping is a prominent part of today’s culture; many partake in after-school naps, midday naps, and power naps before an exam, among other types. People often label those who nap as lazy, but studies show that napping provides both academic and physical benefits. Napping should therefore be regarded as productive, rather than the opposite.
Surrounding culture and society largely shaped the history of sleep. In preindustrial times, many embraced the biphasic sleeping pattern. They had their “first sleep” as the sun set and woke up during the night to socialize, read, or engage in other pastimes. They then fell back asleep for their “second sleep” and woke up just before dawn. In modern days, the nine-to-five work schedule forces everyone, including children, to follow an unnatural cycle of sleep to satisfy economic needs. This unnatural cycle makes it harder to get an adequate amount of sleep, which is more serious than one may think.
Reduced sleep muddles the interaction between circadian rhythms and homeostatic processes like appetite and blood pressure. Research shows that sleep-deprived children have reduced gray matter, which includes areas of the brain that are in charge of attention, memory, and inhibition control. A reduction was still evident two years after gray matter volume was first measured, which suggests that this effect is not quickly reversible. A lack of sleep can also be detrimental to the emotional regulation of children; if they do not get enough sleep, they can easily be overwhelmed, which causes grumpiness and emotional overreaction. In addition to impacting emotions, lack of sleep can cause attention issues, academic difficulties, mental health problems, and even changes in growth in children. Growth hormone is secreted during deep sleep, so reduced sleep deprives children of it, stunting not only their physical development but also their mental and emotional development.
“Sleep-deprived children have smaller volumes of gray matter, which include areas of the brain that are in charge of attention, memory, and inhibition control.”
So how can this be avoided? The answer is by napping. Naps are incredibly important, especially for children and growing teenagers. Research shows that napping is essential for academic advancement, memory consolidation, regulation of emotions and temperament, and physical development. According to the CDC, infants need around 12–16 hours of sleep, and teens need around 8–10 hours every day.
Napping helps clear the brain after encountering new information. It allows the brain to rest and sort through short-term memories from the day, allowing such memories to then get sorted into the cortex of the brain for long-term memory consolidation. Sorting is almost like a reshaping of the brain; during this process, new connections between neurons form, allowing signals to pass through and memories to form. This is especially important in children, as they are not only learning how to count numbers and read words, but they are also experiencing new feelings about the world around them. Noting that the sky is blue, that the sunlight feels warm on the skin, and that the grass feels prickly on their feet are all experiences that are brand new to them. Younger children, therefore, need more sleep to file away these new memories into long-term memory storage. Because naps allow children to sort through the day’s events, they provide a clean slate for when children wake up to tackle new experiences.
Napping appears to be essential to the development of children. Changing the narrative from “laziness” to “normal” can help erase societal judgments on napping, allowing children to get the rest they need for optimum development.
