Hear plenty of self-improvement podcasters, and it’s simple to believe that dozing is a secret weapon: more than a quick fix after poor sleep, but a shortcut towards a better memory, better spirits and perhaps improved athletic performance. Elite athletes are all at it – and so are professional piano players, mixed martial artists and high-profile executives. But if you haven’t got a room for napping or a career that allows regular snoozing, is it *truly* enough benefits to a short sleep to justify the kerfuffle? Does there exist a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you truly ensure you’ll wake up feeling improved, rather than worse?
Understanding Your Reasons for Napping
“We can identify three key drivers for taking a nap among most adults,” explains an expert sleep and circadian science researcher. “The first is what we call make-up sleep, which is the action you take following poor sleep the night before. Another is preparatory napping, where you are preparing for sleep loss in the future, for example if you’re working graveyard shifts. Finally, there's “hedonic napping”, which basically boils down to desire: you have an opportunity to doze during the day, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The primary task to do, then, is consider why you want to nap. “Naps can be truly beneficial when night sleeping is disturbed due to causes outside your control – for instance, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or you’re recovering from illness or heavy physical exertion,” explains a sleep physiologist. “However, if you nap because your nighttime sleep is unstable or unreliable, that is frequently a signal your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as required. In those cases, napping can become part of the issue, instead of the fix. Utilize daytime sleep as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the focus ought to remain a robust and regular night’s sleep.”
The Perfect Nap Length
Therefore that naps ought not to be long enough to disrupt your sleep at night, and preferably are not recommended in the late afternoon (depending on what time you sleep at night). How long is sensible? Advice differs. In one of the most-cited studies regarding daytime sleep, researchers at Nasa found that crew members showed a boost of up to 54% in attentiveness and a 34% boost in cognitive performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this involved a six-minute long falling asleep phase). “I recommend using an alarm for 20-30 minutes – many individuals are asleep quickly,” explains a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of recommendations about the optimal amount of minutes, but that tends to make people feel more stressed above all – and the worst thing you can do while aiming to nod off is to stress over it.”
If you plan to take an extended nap, bypass the 45-60 minute window that encourages sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “The science indicates it's more effective to have a lengthier snooze of 60 to 90 minutes compared to a medium-length nap,” notes the sleep scientist. “45 minutes is sufficient to send you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel sluggish when you wake up – whereas if you nap for a bit longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you will probably to be completing a full cycle and should wake up feeling more rejuvenated. But if you’re sleeping for a long period, it can influence your sleep that night.”
Creating the Perfect Nap Environment
As for precise methods, suggestions are diverse. Some experts recommend adopting comparable habits you’d use to foster restful sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and maximum darkness as possible. Some advise that it's fine to merely snooze in a chair in the existing light is present – to avoid post-nap grogginess and to “protect” your bedroom as the space your mind associates with proper sleep. “Sleep is quite challenging to command,” notes a specialist. “Lacking any drowsiness, it is more challenging to recline and essentially command yourself to nod off. You need a natural inclination there to bring the sleep on to begin with. I can usually take a nap in broad daylight and naturally wake up alarm-free, but what helps a lot of people is to wait for a time when they are naturally feeling a bit drowsy and calmly relax into it.”
It’s worth experimenting, and when you have few options – for example, if attempting to squeeze in some shut-eye while traveling or at the office – it is perfectly fine to use sleep aids. “In my work with elite athletes, I suggest that they not rely on sleeping in their bed, since they’re going to have|they will
