Objectively Measured Daytime Napping Patterns and All-Cause Mortality in Older Adults

 

It would seen to be better to address why the napping is occurring, NO sleep protocol so maybe not enough rest is achieved the night before. It would help if your doctor actually critically thinks about your napping. Maybe you need coffee napping.

• Coffee napping August 2014

Objectively Measured Daytime Napping Patterns and All-Cause Mortality in Older Adults

1. Chenlu Gao, PhD^1,2,3; Ruixue Cai, PhD^1,2; Xi Zheng, MS¹
 
2. et al

1. Author Affiliations 
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JAMA Netw Open

 Published Online: 20, 2026

2026;9;(4):e267938. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.7938

 

Key Points

 Question  Are objectively measured daytime nap characteristics, including duration, frequency, variability, and timing, associated with all-cause mortality among community-dwelling older adults? Findings In this prospective cohort study of 1338 adults aged 56 years or older, longer and more frequent daytime napping, as well as morning napping, were associated with higher all-cause mortality. Variability in nap duration was not associated with mortality.

Meaning  The findings suggest longer and more frequent, particularly morning, napping may be a behavioral marker of increased mortality risk in late life, underscoring the potential clinical value of incorporating wearable device–based nap assessments into routine health monitoring.

Abstract

Importance  Daytime napping is common among older adults, but evidence linking objective daytime nap patterns to mortality is limited, as prior studies relied largely on self-report. Some daytime nap characteristics, such as timing and variability of nap duration across days, are also understudied.

Objective  To test whether actigraphy-measured daytime nap duration, frequency, variability, and timing are associated with all-cause mortality.

Design, Setting, and Participants  This prospective cohort study used data from the population-based Rush Memory and Aging Project, in which the analytic baseline was initiated in August 2005. Participants in this current study were community-dwelling adults aged 56 years or older in northern Illinois, with up to 19 years of follow-up. Data for this study were gathered until April 2025.

Main Outcome and Measures  Daytime napping, defined as sleeping between 9 am and 7 pm and assessed by up to 14 days of actigraphy data. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate associations between baseline daytime nap characteristics (duration, frequency, variability in duration across days, and timing) and subsequent all-cause mortality.

Results  Among 1338 participants over a mean (SD) follow-up of 8.30 (4.78) years (mean [SD] participant age, 81.40 [7.39] years; 1018 [76.0%] female), 926 (69.2%) died at a mean (SD) of 7.54 (4.52) years (range, 0.08-19.08 years) after analytic baseline. Participants wore the actigraphy device for a mean (SD) of 9.58 (1.22) days. After adjusting for all covariates, longer daytime nap duration (adjusted hazard ratio [AHR] per 1-hour increase, 1.13; 95% CI, 1.04-1.23; P = .005) and higher nap frequency (AHR per additional daily nap, 1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.13; P = .003) at baseline were associated with increased mortality. Morning nappers had higher mortality risk compared with early afternoon nappers (AHR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.03-1.64; P = .03). Variability in daytime nap duration was not associated with mortality after covariate adjustment (AHR per 1-hour increase, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.89-1.14; P = .93).

Conclusions and Relevance  In this prospective cohort study of community-dwelling older adults, longer and more frequent daytime napping, especially in the morning, were associated with higher all-cause mortality. The findings suggest incorporating wearable device–based daytime nap assessments into clinical and public health practices may provide novel opportunities for early risk identification of health conditions.