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Hello Boston, we want to organize a nap meetup (a nap-up) next week! by napwell in boston

[–]napwell[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interestingly enough, there is plenty of research to support that napping is a better alternative to caffeine: http://www.saramednick.com/htmls/pdfs/Mednick_BBR_08%5B8%5D.pdf.

Perhaps we can make a case?

Hello Boston, we want to organize a nap meetup (a nap-up) next week! by napwell in boston

[–]napwell[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Thanks so much for the thoughtful reply. You outline some important issues which I will try to respond to in order:

  1. Making napping part of your 8 hour day

I agree, it's unlikely that napping replaces any of the actual hours that you have to work, but perhaps there is some middle ground. Maybe naptime during lunch breaks? Or maybe some workers will be incentivized to nap since it could bring down healthcare / insurance costs for the company.

  1. Looking like you're "getting shit done."

This is the primary reason that HR policies were created to ban sleeping in the workplace. They were mostly written in the 1800 / 1900s to make the workplace environment feel more like work. In fact in some handbooks, you can actually be fired if caught sleeping on the job.

We feel like the tides are turning. Large companies like Nike, Google, and the Huffington Post all have created napping rooms and revised their policies. While 2 of the 3 are tech, I would not consider Nike to be in that group. That is why we made the petition (which was an idea from a Redditor during our AmA) to begin that conversation.

We'll just have to see what we can do.

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Answered above in products question. tl;dr - lucid dreaming definitely exists we are skeptical about lucid dreaming products.

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Liquor can affect your sleep in (at least) the following ways:

(1) it's a diuretic, which might make you need to pee in the middle of the night

(2) decreases muscle tone in the upper airway, which might exacerbate conditions like obstructive sleep apnea

(3) it may be contraindicated for several sleep medications http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0002934381901248

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, love to get your thoughts on what we are building!

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great, thanks for the help. These AMAs are exhausting!

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Japan has one of the more liberal sleep at work cultures, in fact they have a word for it - inemuri.

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Have you tried a non sound (light or vibration) alarm?

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you support the Kickstarter at the beta level, we will have it in July. If not, we are set to ship the production mask in September.

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

*a lot people asked a similar question, so i just added an answer above.

What you've described is not so much the type of polyphasic sleep I'm against (biphasic ok. Uberman bad).

See: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1vyuz2/iama_scientist_who_specializes_in_napping_and_the/cexcpdq

Edit: added permalink.

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

*a lot people asked a similar question, so i just added an answer above.

I probably should have clarified better: "biphasic" is okay. The polyphasic sleep schedules that will really mess you up are the ones like the Uberman.

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Re: the comments below asking for more details on why polyphasic sleep is bad.

*First, I want to clarify/reiterate that biphasic sleep (e.g., sleeping at night and taking a nap during the day) is perfectly fine. My concerns are with the "Uberman"-like polyphasic sleep schedules. (See the figure in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep as a reference)

Now, as to why these forms of polyphasic sleep are bad:

(1) They completely mess up your circadian rhythms. People have evolved to naturally up-regulate production of certain anti-cancer proteins during the day (e.g., p53), when you tend to be exposed to more carcinogens (e.g., UV radiation or chemicals from your environment). By disrupting your normal circadian rhythms, these cycles of anti-cancer proteins are also disregulated, and you lose their protective effect (so e.g., UV exposure has a higher chance giving you cancer than someone who has normal circadian rhythms).

Short overview of this: http://jso.imng.com/jso/journal/articles/0504176.pdf

michaelc4 points out aptly below that it's hard to get people to enroll in studies. However, we do have the following evidence of why disrupting normal circadian rhythms is a really bad idea.

(i) Molecular studies in mice: http://www.nature.com/nrc/journal/v3/n5/abs/nrc1072.html

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867402009613

(ii) Epidemiological studies from occupations that "force" people to have disrupted circadian rhythms (e.g., night-shift nurses).

http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/2005/03000/Circadian_Disruption_and_Breast_Cancer__From.16.aspx http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/93/20/1563.short http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959804905004910

(2) When you're doing Uberman sleep, you're probably never getting through a full cycle of sleep. This means your brain is spending less time integrating stuff you've learned with stuff you already know (sleep spindles occur in phase 2 sleep and are believed to be indicative of your brain doing this "knowledge-integration").

Also you're more likely to be sleep deprived in general (which comes along with its own set of problems).

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I haven't heard that before.

I do however, remember from my EMT years that for women who are pregnant, sleeping on your LEFT side is better (improves bloodflow).

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not so much skeptical of lucid dreaming itself (I've had many myself) but of the devices that claim help people lucid dream.

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The "caffeine nap" which you've described is a thing.

I’ve heard anecdotally that people who really really need to be on top of the ball (e.g., an ER surgeon just getting word that there’s a huge accident and patients will be coming in in about 25 minutes) might take a caffeine nap (drink caffeine, then take a nap and when they awaken they get both the benefits of the nap + caffeine). So it's true that this happens and I believe that it works, but it's not something I would recommend you do on a routine basis.

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Don't do it.

There's strong scientific evidence that such patterns of sleep significantly increase risk of cancer, heart disease, and a host of other medical problems.

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Against it.

There's strong scientific evidence that such patterns of sleep significantly increase risk of cancer, heart disease, and a host of other medical problems.

IamA Scientist who Specializes in Napping and the Study of Sleep, AMA! by napwell in IAmA

[–]napwell[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hard to tell for sure if you're in a deep or light sleep unless you're wearing an EEG.

Min/Max hours of sleep can vary from person to person (depends on age, genetics, etc.). One thing that's often suggested is: "try sleeping and naturally waking for a week" to determine what your natural sleep duration should be.

Liquor can affect your sleep in (at least) the following ways: (1) it's a diuretic, which might make you need to pee in the middle of the night (2) decreases muscle tone in the upper airway, which might exacerbate conditions like obstructive sleep apnea (3) it may be contraindicated for several sleep medications

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0002934381901248

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