The Nap Detection detection feature is available for Oura users with active membership.
What is Nap Detection?
How Nap Detection Works
Things to Keep in Mind
More Information
What is Nap Detection?
With Nap Detection, Oura users get credit for all accumulated sleep throughout the day and night. For those who regularly nap, or sleep more during the day due to shift-work, polyphasic sleep patterns, new parenthood, etc., Nap Detection will improve sleep tracking accuracy, and account these sleep periods for in Sleep and Readiness Scores.
Oura tracks sleep in a 24-hour window from 6pm to 6pm each day. Oura tracks sleep this way so that you don't receive a new Sleep or Readiness Score too late into the evening.
If you nap within this timeframe, your Sleep and Readiness Scores will be updated immediately after confirming a detected nap
If your nap is recorded after 6pm, your Sleep and Readiness Scores won't be updated until the following morning. However, you'll still be able to see all sleep analysis data from your nap (i.e. sleep stages, RHR, HRV, etc). Once your scores update, they'll also be reflected in on the Sleep and Readiness screens, as well as in your trends graphs.
How Nap Detection Works
For Oura to detect sleep as a nap, it must be between 15 minutes and three hours in length, and your body must fall into at least one sleep stage (e.g. light, deep, or REM) during that time. It is possible that your time in bed may extend beyond 15 minutes, but changes in your heart rate, movement, and average body temperature do not yet indicate that you've physically entered sleep. Extra movement or an elevated heart rate may also delay detection of a nap. In these cases, a presumed nap may be instead labeled as a rest and shown on the 24-hour heart rate graph as restorative time (green).
Any sleep picked up by Oura that’s longer than three hours will be viewed as your longest sleep period, and added automatically.
Please note: In many cases, the Oura App won't detect a nap if it occurs within four hours of the end of the main sleep cycle. To increase the likelihood of additional sleep being included in your main sleep cycle, we recommend syncing your Oura Ring or placing it on the charger only after your second wake-up time (if your nap is within four hours of your first wake-up time).
After you've napped for at least 15 minutes, the Oura App will display a nap confirmation card. This card will include the time your nap was taken and its length.
If you choose to confirm your nap, you'll see a new card showing how your extra rest may have boosted your Sleep and Readiness Scores.
By selecting Show details, you’ll see full sleep analysis of your nap, including your hypnogram, amount of time spent in each stage, as well as your movement, resting heart rate, and heart rate variability graphs.
Your confirmed nap will be shown in the app's home, Sleep, and Readiness screens.
Things to Keep in Mind
- The only Sleep and Readiness contributors not impacted by naps are Latency (included in your Sleep Score), Recovery Index, Activity, and Activity Balance (included in your Readiness Score)
- Your Sleep Score may be impacted (positively or negatively) depending on the quality of rest and timing of your nap
- Your Readiness Score may also be lowered if your average body temperature significantly elevates while you nap, as this can be a sign of emerging illness
- If you don't confirm a detected nap, it will automatically be categorized as a restful period or restorative time, which doesn't affect scores or contributors, so leaving a nap unconfirmed will have no impact on your Oura data
- Nap Detection data is currently not available via Oura on the Web
- At the time, naps currently cannot be: (1) manually adjusted, (2) added onto the next day if left unconfirmed, or (3) deleted once you've confirmed them
