Article Review 2

According to the NASA Science online article "NASA Naps," there are myriad benefits to sleeping over the course of a day. This article doesn't get into polyphasic sleep as much as I'd like it to, seeing as my end goal is to replace my seven hours a night with roughly three a day. Astronauts are, like most people, recommended to get eight hours of sleep a night. This proves incredibly difficult in space, and studies have shown that astronauts tend to nap during the day, and sleep less at "night." The naps help to compensate for the loss of sleep that they face, but occasionally naps can lead to something the article calls "sleep inertia." Sleep inertia is the tendency of a nap to lead to grogginess, irritability, or persistent fatigue. The goal of napping is the elimination of those qualities, and it is still unclear why naps can have negative side-effects. Thankfully, the why of things isn't important to me. I just want to know how much I've got to sleep, and if naps opposed to monophasic sleep is possible.

The interventionist study performed by NASA was designed to target the amount of sleep participants in the study managed to get, determining the exact value of their sleep. Sleep time would range from 4-8 hours each night, and daily naps up to 2.5 hours, with a minimum value of no naps. The subjects were monitored, and so the potential for one to not fall asleep for the required time would either be dismissed from the study, or corrected. I cannot think of anything that this intervention could affect other than the amount of time slept, other than being an indirect cause of the things that sleep changes. This is still allowed by an ideal intervention, and so the test results of the various cognitive and physical tests are still valid. Telling the participants how long to sleep is, in fact, uncaused by anything other than a scientist's desire to study sleep.

During sleep, hormone production in saliva and blood, and core body temperature were all measured. These variables were used to determine the effects on a person's physical body, rather than their mind, to judge possible negative effects not seen in cognitive trials. These cognitive trials include response tests, and tests of alertness and memory. It was determined that naps had a positive impact on the body and mind, regardless of the amount slept at night. Another test was performed to see how sleeping majorly during the day would affect the body with a nap occurring when their body thought it was night. These subjects had a more difficult time ending their rests, however, and experience more sleep inertia than diurnal sleepers.

At the very least, I will take on a diphasic sleep schedule, based on this study. An afternoon nap, along with four hours of sleep at night, can provide me with all of the sleep I need to function with potentially increased cognitive power. I'd still like to sleep even less, however, and may experiment on my own regarding a four-hour rest at night, and a number of very short naps during the day. I believe this could keep cognitive power at a constant peak, instead of one that spikes after a nap and dulls.