Temporal Associations Between Daytime Napping and Nocturnal Sleep: An Exploration of Random Slopes

Restricting daytime naps is a common sleep hygiene recommendation to improve nocturnal sleep, but research on whether napping is related to sleep is mixed. The current literature is limited in that day level, bidirectional associations have not been tested in college students, and existing studies have not sufficiently examined the role of individual differences in these daily associations.

The current study addressed these limitations by assessing the temporal associations between self-reported daytime nap duration and objectively assessed nocturnal sleep, and whether these associations were moderated by chronotype or nap frequency, in college students.

Participants (N = 384) self-reported nap duration and wore an actiwatch to measure nocturnal sleep for 14 consecutive days and nights. Mixed linear models were used to test the daily associations between daytime nap duration and total sleep time (TST), sleep onset latency (SOL), sleep efficiency (SE), and wake after sleep onset (WASO). In addition, random slope modeling was used to test whether these associations significantly varied between participants.

Longer nap duration was significantly associated with greater WASO, lower SE, and longer SOL. Shorter TST, shorter WASO, and greater SE were related to longer next-day nap duration.

There were several significant associations between daytime napping and nocturnal sleep, and nap frequency significantly moderated the association between TST and next-day nap duration. Future research should test daily and contextual moderators of daytime napping and nocturnal sleep, which could refine sleep hygiene efforts by identifying individuals for whom recommendations would be most helpful.