Always tired? What your naps and nights might be telling you

Some weeks, the afternoon slump arrives right on schedule. You nod off on the couch after dinner, or plan your Saturday around a nap. If you keep wondering why you're always tired, you're not alone.

This week there's an extra reason. Daylight saving started at 2am on Sunday 4 October in New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT, Tasmania and South Australia, when clocks moved forward an hour. Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory don't use daylight saving, so clocks there didn't change.

Here's what recent Australian research says about naps, and how Thrive can help you see your naps, nights and energy side by side.

How common are naps?

A study published in July 2026 in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, led by researchers at The University of Queensland, looked at the sleep of 17,570 Australians aged over 15. It found that 30% napped at least once a week. It also found that 18% slept less than age-based guidelines recommend, and 20% met the study's criteria for sleep disturbance.

One thing worth knowing: the study used data collected in 2017, from the national Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey. The authors describe it as a picture from before the pandemic and say newer research is needed. So it's a useful snapshot, not a measure of how Australians are sleeping right now.

The researchers found napping was more common among people aged 65 and over, and among shift workers. These are links in the data, not causes. The authors also chose not to count napping as a sleep problem, because there's real debate about whether it is one.

What makes a good nap

The Sleep Health Foundation says a nap may help you feel more alert and cope better with the day, but it can't replace good quality sleep at night. Its suggestions include:

Keep it short. 15 to 30 minutes is best. Set an alarm for no longer than 30 minutes.
Go early. We often feel sleepiest in the early afternoon, around 2 to 3pm, so a nap may come more easily then. A long nap late in the day can make it harder to fall asleep at night.
Give yourself time to wake up. After a longer nap you may feel groggy for a while, which the Foundation calls sleep inertia. Take a few minutes before driving or doing anything that needs your full attention.

If you nap regularly, the Foundation suggests napping at the same time each day.

Your nights come first

If a nap has become something you need every day rather than an occasional extra, it may be a sign your nights aren't giving you quite enough. The Sleep Health Foundation says most adults of all ages need 7 to 9 hours of sleep.

Its good sleep habits include keeping regular times for going to bed and getting up, relaxing for an hour before bed, getting some sunlight during the day, and not falling asleep on the couch in the evening, which can make it harder to sleep once you go to bed.

If a regular bedtime is the habit that tends to slip, Thrive has a bedtime reminder to help you keep your bedtimes consistent.

Getting through the clock change

The Sleep Health Foundation says it can take up to a week to feel back to normal after daylight saving starts in October, and that people can lose up to an hour of sleep when the clocks go forward. If you've felt a bit flat this week, that may be part of it.

Its tips for settling in include:

Make your bedroom bright when you first wake, and get outside in the morning sun.
Eat a good breakfast, and exercise outside in the morning if you can.
Skip coffee, tea and other caffeine drinks in the evening.
Take extra care if you're driving while you adjust.

How Thrive can help you see naps and nights together

Feeling tired is real, whatever a chart says. Thrive is there to help you see the bigger picture, not to tell you how you should feel.

Your nights over time. The Thrive Band shows your sleep and sleep stages night by night. Thrive's sleep insights look at the regularity and timing of your sleep, as well as how long you slept, which is handy in a week when the clocks have moved.
Your energy, in your words. A quick energy check-in records how you actually feel. You can note a nap, and how you felt afterwards, in your check-ins too.
Your own usual. Thrive learns what's usual for you. Your baseline starts as Emerging and becomes Established once enough consistent information has been collected, so you can compare this week with your normal, not with an average.
Today's Vitality and Today's Load. Today's Vitality, a daily score from 0 to 100, gives you a simple read on how you're travelling, and Today's Load shows how active your day has been. Together they can help you see whether a tired afternoon followed a short night or a big day.
Patterns that go together. Thrive's correlations engine looks for habits and patterns that tend to line up, such as later nights and the days you feel most tired.

Ask Thrive is the part of Thrive you talk to in everyday language. It draws on your own information and explains your patterns in plain English. You might ask:

"How has my sleep looked since daylight saving started, compared with my usual?"
"Do I tend to feel more tired after shorter nights?"
"What seems to go with my lowest-energy days?"

Ask Thrive highlights patterns in your own information. It doesn't tell you what's causing your tiredness.

If checking your sleep ever starts to feel stressful, our article on a calmer way to live with your health data may help.

Taking it to your GP

healthdirect suggests seeing your doctor if you've had fatigue for more than 2 weeks and it isn't getting better. It suggests going sooner if your tiredness is worrying you, stopping you from doing things, or comes with other symptoms such as weight loss. Feeling tired all the time has lots of possible causes, from a busy stretch of life to things your GP can check, and healthdirect notes that sometimes a cause isn't found.

If you book in, Thrive can help you get ready. Open the app to the weeks you'd like to talk about, so your GP can see your nights and check-ins with you, or ask Ask Thrive to help you put your questions into words beforehand. What Thrive shows isn't a diagnosis, and Thrive isn't designed to tell you that something is wrong. How you've been feeling, in your own words, matters just as much.

Our article on getting ready for a GP appointment with Thrive and Ask Thrive has more ideas.

Before you buy

You'll need a compatible iPhone or Android phone, because the Thrive app is on the Apple App Store and Google Play, in Australia and eight other countries. The app stores are only for downloading the app, though; they aren't where you buy the Band or a Plan. You can buy at thrivehealthband.com, or at a participating World Gym Australia location or health and wellness clinic.

The Thrive Health Band is A$660 for the first year under the launch offer (usually A$740). That includes the Band, which is yours to keep, and 12 months of the Thrive by Optihealth app, My Health on the web, Health Fingerprint, Ask Thrive, Thrive Loops and your data, paid once upfront. Prices are in AUD and include GST. Free Australia-wide shipping during the launch offer (usually A$14.99).

Nothing renews automatically. After your first year, you can get a new band plus 12 more months for A$660, or keep your band and renew the Thrive Connected Plan for A$240 a year (A$20 a month).

You're also covered by a 12-month Thrive Care Warranty, and consumer guarantees under Australian Consumer Law always apply. See Returns if something is wrong with your purchase.

Common questions

Is napping bad for me?

Not necessarily. The Sleep Health Foundation says a short nap can help you feel more alert. Long or late naps can make it harder to sleep at night, and a nap can't replace night-time sleep. If you're tired a lot of the time, it's worth looking at your nights, and talking to your GP if it lasts.

Did daylight saving change the clocks everywhere in Australia?

No. Clocks went forward on Sunday 4 October in New South Wales, Victoria, the ACT, Tasmania and South Australia. Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory don't use daylight saving.

For more answers, see Questions.