For Measuring Me: Take 2, I decided to explore my habit of excessive napping. Over the last year, I have been trying to improve my sleep (and feelings of constant tiredness despite getting enough sleep) and have already looked at factors such as comfort, light, temperature, noise, position, and bedtime.
One of the next things I’m hoping to look at is my schedule itself, which I suspect may be slightly skewed due to leaning heavily on napping. Through this assignment, I decided to quantify my napping and to explore some of the factors related to this habit.
My first challenge was defining what constitutes a nap:
I chose to define “napping” as any period of sleep less than four hours.
I always sleep significantly more than four hours every night, so this definition helped me exclude my nighttime sleep. I also occasionally take very long naps, so I chose four hours to make sure those are counted as naps.
I specifically chose not to place any constraints around the time of naps, as I will often nap late at night before actually sleeping or in the morning after early meetings/class.
At the end of the day, it’s my habit I want to fix, so any definition that I am comfortable with is suitable.
After defining naps, it was time to measure them:
Measuring naps was very simple! I collected data for four days (Saturday–Tuesday), and I decided to write down the times when I fell asleep and when I woke up. After waking up, I also retroactively recorded what I was up to in the hour before the nap, why I woke up from the nap, and where I napped.
In addition, I also wrote down my nighttime sleep times in the morning upon waking up. Although this is distinct from napping, the amount of nighttime sleep I get may be correlated with the amount of times I nap and the amount of time I spend napping.
At the end of each day, I wrote down what I did during that day. This was to help me see what my overall activity levels were like.
This was overall very straightforward and doable without too much a hassle.
Data:
Saturday, January 13:
I slept from 2 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. when I woke up from my alarm. I played tennis with friends and then napped.
Naps:
- 11 a.m. – 2:35 p.m. (woke up naturally, in bed). Before this, I had played tennis and then come back and showered.
Sunday, January 14:
I slept from 1 a.m. to 10:35 a.m. when I woke up naturally. I played tennis with friends again, had dinner with friends, and went to a friend’s party in the evening.
I did not nap this day.
Monday, January 15:
I slept from 2:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. when I woke up from my alarm. I got ready and then went on a daytrip with friends until 9 p.m. I called a friend from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. and then went on my daily run at midnight. I did nap a bit after this, but have marked that as under the next day.
Tuesday, January 16:
I slept from 2 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. when I woke up from my alarm. I got ready and then went to class and was out of the apartment until 6 p.m. In the evening, I worked on CS 254 and CS 247B work.
Naps:
- 12:30–1:15 a.m. (alarm, on top of bed but not under covers). Before this, I had eaten a pizza, called a friend, run, and showered.
- 7:15–8:30 p.m. (alarm, on the floor). Before this, I had eaten dinner and done homework.
Model 1:
I created a connection circle and annotated the most important parts. I also drew little icons by each node. Overall, this diagram showed me that exercise, eating, socializing, and being inside are all associated with sleepiness, which leads to naps, which, ideally, reduce sleepiness.
Model 2:
I created an iceberg model and filled out each of the sections. This diagram helped me investigate deeper that just naps—the trend is that I am often sleepy and that I nap when I’m sleepy. The structures that cause sleepiness include work, eating, exercising, and socializing. Some of the underlying beliefs and mental models that support the entire system include a desire to be busy but also believing in rest, treats, socializing, getting stuff done, and getting sleep—these things are all somewhat in tension with one another.
Learnings and takeaways:
Why did I nap? On Saturday, I napped after exercise and a night with less sleep. On Tuesday, I napped after eating, calling, doing homework, and exercising. I also napped after eating dinner and doing homework. Overall, naps appear to be associated with being in my room, exercise, food, homework, and less sleep. Conversely, I didn’t nap when I was out of the apartment and got enough sleep.
How can I nap less? If I’m hoping to reduce napping, it appears that I should stay out of the apartment more often—in short: stay out to stay up (see: Sunday and Monday)! Over the weekend, this looked like going on day trips; during the week, this could instead look like going to the library or a cafe to work. Based on the American Psychological Association’s Speaking of Psychology podcast’s episode with Dr. Wendy Wood, adding friction to a behavior makes us less likely to do it. In this case, staying away from the places where I nap the most often may dissuade me from napping. Additionally, I can also make sure I rest enough at night or time my evening exercise such that I can go to sleep for the night right after it instead of just briefly napping. Future research may be required to figure out how exactly I can reduce post-meal naps too.
What would I do differently with the measuring experience? In the future, it would be nice to measure my napping habits over a longer period of time. For this assignment, I chose to measure for more than the required two days, but I still didn’t get to measure during the week itself (Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and even if I had measured on Friday, I don’t have class/work then). From personal experience, I can say that my napping habits are different during the week versus over the weekend. Furthermore, it could be interesting to see how my napping habits evolve later into the quarter when I have more work and other obligations.
What did I do well with the measuring experience? I think I did a good job of having a relatively non-invasive measuring experience, which consisted of brief notes in the morning and in the evening, plus post-naps. I am glad that I also measured other related habits/factors, such as nighttime sleep and what I was up to prior to a nap. Recording my nap location also gave me insight into where I sleep.
In the future, I could also consider measuring exhaustion levels (this is doable with a Whoop fitness band, which I previously used for another study). I could also measure what I ate, as well as my exact meals/snack times, as I still need to figure out what can be done to reduce post-meal naps. For example, do carb-heavy meals result in more sleepiness? I would need to research more to find out!
Overall, I was really happy with how this assignment went as a whole. I was able to gain experience with measuring a habit that I actually care about, and I was able to identify some of the causes of napping, plus how to address them.
Thank you for reading 🙂
