A little nap to make up for a short night

Short night, very long day… Unless you cut it off with a nap. Science has in fact just demonstrated the unsuspected virtues of post-meridian snoozing, capable of canceling out the harmful effects of a too short night.

Thus, according to a study published in the journal Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, a small nap would restore hormone and protein levels in the body to fight stress, as well as restore the proper functioning of the immune system.

Effective from 30 minutes
Eleven healthy men, aged 25 to 32, participated in this study with amazing results. For the purposes of the experiment, their night was reduced to two hours of sleep. The next day, one group was given a two-hour nap, and the other a thirty-minute nap. Throughout the trial, scientists measured their hormone levels to assess the impact of sleep deprivation on their bodies.

The researchers were able to observe that after a short night, the levels of norepinephrine had doubled in the subjects. This hormone, which increases heart rate, blood pressure and blood sugar, plays an essential role in the body’s response to stress. However, after a nap, these rates returned to normal in both groups.

“Our work suggests that a nap of just 30 minutes can reverse the hormonal impact of a bad night,” explains Brice Faraut, researcher at Paris Descartes-Sorbonne University, who co-authored the study.

Impact on the immune system
Ditto concerning the levels of interleukin-6, a protein with antiviral properties contained in saliva, and whose levels had fallen due to sleep deprivation. The study shows that the nap makes it possible to return to normal levels.

“This is the first study to show that napping can restore the health of the neuroendocrine and immune system,” explain the authors, who advocate “developing concrete strategies that could help people. chronically sleep deprived, such as those working at night ”. An additional argument for those who wish to take a nap at work …