Naps can be a blessing and a luxury, and although they can help you catch up on a short-term sleep debt studies show that for people with difficult to manage insomnia napping might actually make things worse. The problem is that if your body is having a hard time falling asleep at night anyway, sleeping during the day only serves to make sleeping at night that much less necessary.
A better solution, according to Natural Health, is to go to bed 30 to 60 minutes later every night (but continue getting up at the same time) in order to build up a “healthy sleep debt” so that when you go to bed at night your body will be faster to both fall asleep and get into the deeper stages of sleep. And of course insomnia could be a symptom of other health issues like depression or sleep apnea, so if you’re at all concerned see your doctor.
(Photo courtesy of semihundido on Flickr)
