Why Napping Can Make Insomnia Worse

As a therapist certified in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia (CBT-I), I generally recommend that people with insomnia avoid napping—unless they’re sick, too tired to drive safely, or there’s another urgent reason.

Napping reduces what’s known as sleep drive: the biological pressure to sleep that builds while we’re awake. Staying awake and active during the day helps create the fuel needed to sleep well at night.

After a bad night—or several bad nights—it’s natural to want relief. Unfortunately, catching up with a daytime nap can make it harder to fall asleep the following night and confuse the body’s sense of when it’s supposed to sleep. A consistent schedule, with roughly the same bedtime and wake time each day, can help reset that rhythm.

If you regularly sleep between six and nine hours, wake feeling mostly refreshed, and don’t struggle with insomnia, an occasional nap is unlikely to be a problem. However, frequent napping may sometimes signal an underlying health condition, another sleep disorder, or depression.

In many cultures, napping is considered healthy and restorative. Yet people don’t always fall asleep during that time—they simply pause. Perhaps what we need more of, especially in Western culture, isn’t necessarily more sleep during the day, but more permission to slow down and rest.