If a 15-minute nap during the day = 90 minutes during the night...

[Iceglow]

Napping is pointless in my opinion. I try not to do it and I get an average of merely 4 - 6 hours sleep each night, every night. Generally speaking, more than that is simply not worth it. My ex needed some 8 - 10 hours a night and I totally thought she wasted her life, she drinks far more caffeine than I do and yet cannot remain asleep and here I am up 18 - 20 hours normally each day and can pull an all-nighter easily enough simply because I need or want to with little ill effect. Today even though I was out clubbing and drinking last night and made it home and in bed at 6am I got 6.5 hours sleep and feel fine, I'm perhaps a little more tired for this time of evening than normal but not enough that I am likely to go bed before I am normally used to sleeping.

[Cloudane]

On this general topic, quality of sleep also comes to mind.

There's a lot of evidence to suggest that sitting in front of a screen less than a few hours before bed fools your brain into thinking it's daytime, making it more difficult to get to sleep and making the quality of sleep not quite as good.

This app: F.lux: software to make your life better for PCs and Macs came up on Slashdot and I had a quick try of it last night. Seems good! Basically it warms the colour temperature of your display (so it becomes a dull orangey colour) towards the end of the day so that the image is very relaxing instead of the usual blue glare.

Hopefully it'll mean less naps required For those of us who don't do the "healthy" thing and go read a book in low light for a couple of hours before going to sleep.

Edit: Oh, just a thought, if anyone ends up using that app on a shared PC make sure you warn the others in case they end up tweaking the settings or throwing the monitor in the trash!

[*Laurelindo*]

A few nights ago I slept really little - I feel asleep at 10 PM and woke up at midnight, then I felt awake and perfectly refreshed; I actually went and played Dragon Warrior 2 all night because I was bored.
Then I took a one hour nap at 11 AM in the morning and after that I felt no need to sleep at all.
I even felt I concentrate pretty well on things.

Maybe slightly longer naps at the right time of day can be effective enough?
Sure felt like it, anyway.