Listen to enough performance podcasters, making it easy to think that napping is a superpower: rather than a band-aid following poor sleep, but a shortcut to a better memory, improved mood and maybe a faster 5k run time. Premier League soccer players do it regularly – along with musicians, fighters and high-profile executives. However, if you lack a room for napping or a job that encourages frequent naps, can there *honestly* enough benefits to a quick nap to merit the kerfuffle? Can you find a reliable way to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you honestly promise you’ll wake up feeling improved, instead of groggy?
Identifying The Nap Motivation
“We can identify three primary motivations for taking a nap among most adults,” says a professor of sleep and circadian science researcher. “Firstly, there's known as recovery napping, essentially what you do when you’ve had a lack of sleep overnight. Another is prophylactic napping, which involves pre-empting sleep loss coming up, for instance when working on night shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which simply comes down to the wish: there is a moment to nap in the daytime, and it feels nice to do it.”
The first thing to do, then, is to think about why you want to nap. “Naps can be genuinely useful when nighttime sleep is disturbed due to causes beyond your control – for example, when you are a parent of a newborn, or recovering after being ill or heavy physical exertion,” explains a sleep specialist. “But if you take a nap since your night sleep seems unreliable or poor, that can be a sign your need for sleep is not as strong as it should be. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, not the solution. Employ naps as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the priority should still be a solid and consistent overnight rest.”
The Ideal Nap Length
This implies that daytime sleep ought not to be long enough to interfere with your overnight rest, and best are not recommended in the late afternoon (contingent on when you go to bed in the evening). How long is sensible? Advice differs. Among a prominent study about napping, researchers at Nasa noted that crew members had up to a 54% increase in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in task performance post a 26-minute snooze (to be precise, this involved an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest setting an alarm for 20-30 minutes – many individuals are asleep in under ten minutes,” says a sleep expert. “There is plenty of advice around regarding the perfect length of minutes, yet that often cause people to feel more anxious than anything – and the least helpful action you can do when trying to fall asleep is worry about it.”
If you’re going to take an extended nap, avoid the period between 45 and 60 minutes that promotes sleep inertia, that foggy state when you wake. “Studies suggests it's more effective to take a lengthier snooze lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” says the expert. “Three-quarters of an hour is sufficient to send you into a deep sleep stage making it more likely to feel groggy upon awakening – however, if you nap for slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you’re likely to finish a natural sleep cycle and should get up feeling more alert. But if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it may impact your sleep later that night.”
Finding the Right Sleep Space
Regarding precise methods, advice differs. A few professionals propose using similar routines one would use to foster restful sleep: a peaceful area, a comfortable bed and minimal light as you can manage. Alternatively, experts propose that it's fine to merely snooze on a couch in the existing light is present – to avoid that groggy feeling and to preserve your bedroom as the space your brain links with proper sleep. “Sleep is quite challenging to command,” notes an expert. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it becomes harder to lie down and essentially instruct yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some drive available to bring the sleep on initially. I can usually snooze in full light and wake up naturally alarm-free, but what helps many individuals is to wait for an instance that they’re naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if your choices are limited – for instance, if attempting to fit in a quick nap while traveling or at the office – there’s nothing wrong to employ a few tools. “In my work with professional sportspeople, I recommend that they not rely on their own bed for naps, because they’re going to have|they will
