HHS HealthBeat (July 21, 2006)

Naptime

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

A little nap apparently can do a lot of good when you work huge hours.

Medical interns, for example, can work 30 hours straight. So University of Chicago researchers tried letting 38 interns nap. For two weeks in a month-long rotation, they got to nap about 40 minutes a night, for a total of about three hours of sleep. The other two weeks? No nap.

After naps, the interns generally felt less tired.

Researcher Vineet Arora says naps also would be good for other workers on long shifts:

"Naps are a really good way of reducing fatigue because they are a short, effective mechanism that anyone can take, and especially in anticipation of working a long shift." (10 seconds)

The study in Annals of Internal Medicine was supported by the National Institutes of Health and HHS' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Learn more at www.hhs.gov.

HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.

Last revised: August, 15 2006