{"id":884936,"date":"2026-09-08T22:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T22:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884936\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T22:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T22:14:10","slug":"sleep-deprived-try-this-quick-recovery-option-thats-not-a-nap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/884936\/","title":{"rendered":"Sleep-Deprived? Try This Quick Recovery Option That\u2019s Not a Nap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Everyone\u2019s been there: A poor night\u2019s sleep<\/a> (or no sleep at all) has left you feeling horrible in the morning. You might be inclined to guzzle coffee or even have a quick siesta to combat the foggy haze<\/a>. But a new study<\/a> finds that a quick trip to the gym may be even more effective for combatting sleep<\/a> deprivation. It might seem counterintuitive to try and squeeze in an intense workout after failing to get a proper night\u2019s rest, but if you can force yourself to get active, even for just 20 minutes, you\u2019ll be better off for it.<\/p>\n

What does the study say?<\/p>\n

Led by researchers from McGill University, the study published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a> found that those who engaged in 20 minutes of vigorous activity fought memory loss<\/a> just as well as those who took a 90-minute nap<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For the study, researchers took 54 healthy young adults and had them stay awake for 30 consecutive hours. They were broken up into three groups: one that did a 20-minute cycling session, others that took a 90-minute nap, and a third that was a control group. Afterwards, they participated in a memory test, and those who took a nap or exercised did significantly better than those who did neither.<\/p>\n

How does napping and exercise affect the brain?<\/p>\n

According to Madhura Lotlikar, a doctoral candidate in McGill’s Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery who is one of the study\u2019s authors, both napping and exercise have a beneficial effect on the brain\u2014just in different ways. She explains that when you stay awake, you start to develop \u201csleep pressure,\u201d or a desire to go to sleep<\/a>. That pressure goes down when you eventually do snooze, but as the pressure goes up, your brain goes into overdrive and experiences damage due to sleep deprivation. After a 90-minute nap (the duration was chosen based on existing studies that says its length resulted in more restorative sleep than shorter naps, she says), the brain\u2019s ability to learn new things was improved because the sleep pressure was able to decrease.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the 20-minute cycling group never decreased their sleep pressure, but the exercise \u201cfacilitated the usage of available brain resources in an efficient manner.\u201d The two differing actions activated different brain pathways, but resulted in a sleep-deprived person being able combat fatigue and get their brain to work better.<\/p>\n

Does the type of exercise matter?<\/p>\n

This particular study put its participants in a 20-minute cycling session, but Lotlikar says that any form of aerobic exercise should spark the same neural processing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tested for biking, but anything that’s going to raise your heart rate to the intensity that we tested, which was moderate to vigorous intensity of exercise, will work,\u201d she says. \u201cSo 70 to 75% of your heart rate max should suffice\u2014if you have an idea of what your maximum heart rate is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is napping or working out better for sleep deprivation?<\/p>\n

If you didn\u2019t get a good night\u2019s sleep<\/a> and have something important to do the next day,\u201d you should be \u201cdoing something instead of nothing,\u201d Lotlikar says. She adds that both are effective for combatting sleep deprivation, but choosing which option depends on the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf time permits, you can nap,\u201d she says. \u201cBut if you do not have enough time, or it\u2019s in the middle of the day when there\u2019s a lot of light and you\u2019re not able to fall asleep<\/a>, you should exercise for 20 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sleep deprivation can have some seriously bad effects on your health (and appearance<\/a>), so don\u2019t think of this as some sort of hack to get more time out of the day by staying awake.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying that you can repeatedly do this and not sleep and then replace your sleep with acute bouts of exercise or napping,\u201d she says. \u2018Your first goal should be actually getting enough sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everyone\u2019s been there: A poor night\u2019s sleep (or no sleep at all) has left you feeling horrible in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[64,63,538,137,4016,65768],"class_list":["post-884936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-sleep","tag-sleep-and-recovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}