Hear plenty of self-improvement experts, and it’s tempting to believe that a nap is a superpower: not just a sticking plaster following poor sleep, but a path to improved recall, improved mood and perhaps a faster 5k run time. Professional athletes do it regularly – along with musicians, mixed martial artists and business leaders. Yet, when you haven’t got a dedicated nap-room or a job that encourages regular snoozing, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye to merit the effort? Is there a surefire technique to nod off promptly? And can you really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, instead of groggy?
Understanding Your Drive to Snooze
“There are three key drivers for daytime sleep in the adult population,” notes a leading sleep science professor. “Firstly, there's known as make-up sleep, essentially what you do when you’ve had insufficient sleep overnight. Another is preparatory napping, which involves preparing for a sleep deficit in the future, for example when working on night shifts. The third is called “appetitive drive”, which essentially comes down to the wish: you have a moment to doze in the afternoon, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The initial step to undertake, therefore, is to examine why you want to nap. “Daytime sleep can be really helpful when night sleeping is disturbed for reasons outside your control – for example, when you are a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing from illness or intense exercise,” states a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you take a nap as your nighttime sleep seems unreliable or broken, that can be a signal your sleep drive is not where required. In those cases, napping can become a contributing factor, not the solution. Use napping as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the priority ought to remain a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Nap Length
This means that daytime sleep shouldn’t be sufficiently lengthy to interfere with your overnight rest, and preferably shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on what time you retire at night). What's a reasonable length? Guidelines are mixed. From a prominent study about napping, experts noted that astronauts experienced up to a 54% increase in alertness plus a 34% rise in performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this counted a six-minute sleep onset time). “My advice is using an alarm for 20-30 minutes – the majority are asleep in under ten minutes,” explains a specialist. “There’s a lot of guidance out there about the perfect length for sleeping, however, that can lead individuals to become more stressed above all – and the most counterproductive thing you can do while aiming to fall asleep is to stress over it.”
Should you decide to sleep for longer, bypass the period between 45 and 60 minutes that promotes sleep grogginess, that foggy state when you wake. “Studies suggests it is preferable to have a lengthier snooze of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” explains the expert. “Three-quarters of an hour is enough time to plunge you into a deep sleep stage making it more likely to feel sluggish upon awakening – however, if you extend it slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you will probably to be completing a full cycle and should awaken feeling more alert. However, if you nap for an hour and a half, it will affect the quality of your sleep that night.”
Creating the Right Nap Environment
Regarding exact methodologies, advice differs. Some experts propose using the same protocol one would use to encourage restful sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and maximum darkness as you can manage. Others suggest that one could merely snooze on the sofa with ambient lighting is present – to prevent sleep inertia and to “protect” your bed as the place you associate with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is quite challenging to force,” notes a specialist. “Lacking any drowsiness, it is tougher to recline and practically command yourself to nod off. There must be some sleep pressure there to start the process to begin with. I can usually take a nap in full light and wake up naturally without an alarm, however, what assists many individuals is to wait for a time when they are naturally feeling a bit drowsy and just gently relax into it.”
It’s worth experimenting, and when you have few options – for instance, if you’re trying to grab a quick nap while traveling or at the office – there’s nothing wrong to use sleep aids. “Coaching elite athletes, I advise that they avoid becoming accustomed to their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
