Young children who skip daytime naps may be at increased risk for mood disorders later in life, say a new study.

Researchers looked at children 30 to 36 months of age and found that depriving one daily nap resulted in more anxiety, lower levels of joy and interest and less capable of solving problems.

“Many children today do not get enough sleep and for them, daytime naps are a way to ensure that their ‘dream tank’ are full every day,” he said in a news release from the University of Colorado leader Monique Le Bourgeois study, assistant professor of integrative physiology department of the university in Boulder.


“This study shows that sleep deprivation in the form of skipping naps affects the way that babies express different feelings, and eventually their brains could form emotional development and put them at risk of problems related to mood for life, “he said.

Researchers videotaped emotional expressions of young children while working on puzzles soluble and insoluble images on two different days. One day, the test was performed one hour after the children do their normal daytime nap of 90 minutes. Another day, children were deprived of their naps, and were tested one hour after their normal hours of siesta.

When I was deprived of a nap, the children experienced a 34 percent decline in positive emotional responses after completing the puzzle soluble, an increase of 31 percent in negative emotional responses when they could not complete the puzzle unsolvable, and reduced 39 percent in the expression of confusion when trying to complete the puzzle unsolvable.

“The confusion is not bad. It is a complex emotion that shows that the child knows that something goes wrong,” he said Le Bourgeois. “When children have slept well experience confusion, are more likely to seek help from others, which is a positive and adaptive response indicating that they are cognitively involved in their world.”

According to the statement, in general the study shows that skipping a daytime nap may make it harder for young children to take advantage of all the emotional experiences and interesting and adapt to new frustrations.

“Just as good nutrition, adequate sleep is a basic need that gives children the best chance of getting the most important people and things we experience every day,” said Le Bourgeois.

The study appears online and in an upcoming print issue of the Journal of Sleep Research.