According to scientists, napping during daytime can potentially hurt your night time rest.
Napping, for most adults, is probable one of the most priceless things in life. This is even when we all saw it as a nemesis when we were kids. Because of this, as adults we try as much as we can to sneak some naps within the day especially during the afternoon.
Scientists have recently confirmed that taking naps at day time can hurt one's circadian rhythm causing loss of sleep during night time.
If unattended, the cycle of sneaking naps during day time and losing sleep at night can go on and on. In fact, the cycle may even spiral to the complications of sleeplessness at night to the point where one gets cranky, disoriented and groggy when he or she needs most to be alert and productive which is during the morning.
What scientists recently found is that taking long nap times during the day abruptly decreases the levels of adenosine in a person's brain. This brain chemical is responsible for one's sleepiness at night.
Adenosine is produced when one is awake. So the longer one is awake (and especially alert) during daytime, the more adenosine will be produced by the brain so that by night time, falling asleep will be no problem.
Taking naps, snaps off the production of adenosine. The longer the nap one takes during daytime, all the more this brain chemical will be drained down. Such that a person who takes long naps at daytime will experience less sleepiness when it is time to sleep at night.
However, if taking a nap is inevitable during daytime especially towards 2 or 3 to 5 in the afternoon, a short power nap that lasts no more than 30 minutes still proves to be beneficial.