A yawn stretches across LuAnn Fong’s face as she stares blankly at her professor. She’s tired, she’s dazed, and all she wants to do is sleep. The scene could best be described by a typical episode of Charles Schulz’ “Peanuts.” The teacher is lecturing in the front of the room, but all Charlie Brown can hear is “wrahh wrahh wrahh wrahh… wrahh wrahh, wrahh?”
Fong, a freshman journalism major at Ithaca College, slept for only three hours that night. She follows an exhausting routine of rolling out of bed, sleep-walking to class, sitting slumped in her chair (and usually retaining only a fraction of what the professor says), and returning to her room to climb back in bed and curl up for a nice, long nap. After her snooze, she’ll find some time to shove food down her throat before her club meetings and intramural soccer games, only to return to her room afterwards (or the library, depending on the work load) to begin a laborious night of homework typically lasting until the wee hours of the morning. She often utilizes her coffee machine at two in the morning or orders the venti at Starbucks, just to stay up late and then crash in the late afternoon the next day.
Is this a healthy cycle?
“I’m a procrastinator by nature,” Fong says. She waits to do her work until late at night and ends up spending most of her nights working away.
While students like Fong rely upon power naps during the day, others can’t find the time for naps, and would prefer to sleep for a solid seven to eight hours each night.
A student-athlete’s schedule, for example, doesn’t always leave time for napping. Caitlin Ryan, a swimmer at State University of New York at Geneseo, is exhausted by the time her head hits the pillow.
“On most nights I’m in bed by midnight,” Ryan says. “I wake up by 8 a.m. to go to class, I have practice in the afternoon, and after a shower, I do most of my homework and get to sleep. It’s a good routine for me.”
Other students don’t have time for a full night’s sleep or a nap. Jaclyn Cameron, a physical therapy major at Boston University, has adjusted to sleeping an average of five hours a night without taking a nap.
“I have a very demanding course load,” Cameron says. “If I have time between my classes and my three-hour-long labs, I run to the gym or finish up last-minute homework. I feel like I’m consistently tired and a nap here and there would be really helpful.”
But which way of life is the healthiest?
In many Latin American and European countries, siestas, or naps after the midday meal, are still in practice. The American work ethic, which promotes working from the beginning to the end of the workday, considers napping a form of slacking off, however.
“Napping should not be frowned upon at the office or make you feel guilty at home,” writes Dr. James B. Maas, a psychologist and sleep expert at Cornell. “It should have the status of daily exercise.”
Yet many Americans don’t think of napping as a priority and depend on other ways of overcoming sleepiness.
According to an article by Jane E. Brody in the New York Times, “In most industrialized nations, the usual response to the afternoon sag in energy is to try to jump-start the system with caffeine, a tactic that sleep experts say is actually counterproductive, creating only the illusion of efficiency and alertness and depriving the body and brain of much-needed sleep.”
Coffee chains like Starbucks have thrived off of the American reliance on caffeine rather than naps to get them through the workday.
Some Americans have found solace in sleeping-pill prescriptions, 42 million of which were filled last year- up 60 percent since 2000, according to research company IMS Health.
A nap could be more beneficial than many Americans think, however.
A six-year study conducted in Greece found those who took a 30-minute siesta at least three times a week had a 37 percent lower risk of heart-related death, according to an article on BBC.com.
Also, workers who take advantage of the opportunity to sleep for 20 minutes or so during the workday report that they can then go back to work with renewed enthusiasm and energy increasing productivity in the work environment.
Maas, author of Power Sleep, believes that naps taken eight hours after you wake up are more beneficial than adding 20 minutes onto a full night of sleep. A nap that lasts no longer than half an hour typically rejuvenates and energizes the body, and jump-starts the brain to pay closer attention. He also advocates naps at the same time every day to keep the body in a regular routine.
Experts at Harvard University say that a full night's sleep is necessary for many vital body functions, but a short sleep may boost learning and memory.
Fong supports this claim, acknowledging that she is more receptive in her afternoon classes after her nap rather than in the morning.
“I think napping is healthy,” Fong said. “I can’t imagine how else I’d get through my day.”
