Listen to plenty of self-improvement podcasters, and it’s simple to convince yourself that a nap is a superpower: rather than a quick fix after restless night, but a path towards enhanced cognition, better spirits and maybe quicker running times. Premier League athletes do it regularly – as do concert pianists, fighters and media moguls. However, if you haven’t got a special sleep space or a career that permits frequent naps, is it *truly* enough benefits to a short sleep to justify the effort? Can you find a surefire technique to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling better, not worse?
Understanding Your Nap Motivation
“We can identify three main reasons for napping in the adult population,” explains an expert sleep and circadian science researcher. “One is termed compensatory napping, essentially what happens when you’ve had poor sleep the night before. Secondly, there's preparatory napping, which involves pre-empting a sleep deficit ahead, for instance when working overnight shifts. Finally, there's “appetitive drive”, which basically is about the wish: you get a moment to sleep in the afternoon, and it feels nice to do it.”
The first thing to consider, then, is to think about why you want to nap. “Naps can be really helpful when night sleeping is being disrupted because of factors outside your control – for example, when you are a new parent, or if you are healing from sickness or strenuous activity,” says a sleep expert. “However, if you take a nap because your sleep at night feels fragile or broken, that can be an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it should be. In those cases, naps can become a contributing factor, instead of the fix. Utilize daytime sleep as a short-term solution for temporary issues – the focus should still be a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
This implies that napping ought not to be long enough to affect your sleep at night, and preferably shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on when you retire in the evening). What's a reasonable length? Guidelines are mixed. Among the most-cited studies about napping, researchers at Nasa discovered that crew members experienced up to a 54% increase in attentiveness and a 34% boost in performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this involved a six-minute long sleep onset time). “My advice is using an alarm for half an hour or less – most people doze off within 10 minutes,” explains a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of recommendations concerning the optimal amount for sleeping, yet that often cause people to feel more worried above all – and the most counterproductive thing one can do when attempting to get to sleep is to stress over it.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, bypass the 45-60 minute window that encourages sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling when you awaken. “Research would say it’s better to opt for an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” notes the professor. “45 minutes is sufficient to put you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel groggy when you get up – while if you nap for a little longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to be on the end a full cycle and will probably get up feeling more refreshed. However, if you're dozing for 90 minutes, it will affect how you sleep later that night.”
Establishing the Perfect Nap Environment
Regarding specific techniques, recommendations vary. Some experts recommend employing the same protocol one would use to encourage quality nighttime sleep: a silent space, a comfortable bed and maximum darkness as possible. Some advise that one could just doze in a chair in the existing light is available – to avoid that groggy feeling and to “protect” your bedroom as the environment your mind associates with nighttime rest. “Sleep is quite challenging to will,” says a sleep coach. “Without any sleepiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and essentially tell yourself to fall asleep. You need a natural inclination there to bring the sleep on in the first place. For me, it's possible to snooze in broad daylight and naturally wake up without an alarm, however, what assists a lot of people is to anticipate an instance when they are naturally feeling a bit drowsy and then simply relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if options are scarce – for instance, if you’re trying to squeeze in 40 winks on a train or at the office – it is perfectly fine to employ a few tools. “Coaching elite athletes, I suggest that they avoid becoming accustomed to their own bed for naps, as they’re going to have|they will
