Hear a few self-improvement podcasters, making it simple to convince yourself that napping is a superpower: rather than a band-aid following a bad night’s sleep, but a path towards enhanced cognition, better spirits and maybe improved athletic performance. Professional athletes swear by it – along with musicians, mixed martial artists & high-profile executives. Yet, when you haven’t got a room for napping or employment that permits frequent naps, are there *really* enough benefits to a burst of shut-eye to justify the kerfuffle? Can you find a dependable method to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you truly ensure you’ll wake up feeling better, rather than worse?
Identifying Your Nap Motivation
“We can identify three key drivers for taking a nap for many people,” says an expert sleep science professor. “Firstly, there's known as compensatory napping, that is what happens when you’ve had a lack of sleep the previous night. The second is prophylactic napping, which involves anticipating insufficient sleep coming up, for instance if you’re working graveyard shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially is about the wish: you get a moment to nap in the daytime, and it feels nice to nap.”
The primary task to consider, so, is to think about your reason for napping. “Naps can be really helpful when nighttime sleep gets interrupted due to causes outside your control – such as, when you are caring for an infant, or if you are healing from illness or heavy physical exertion,” states a sleep specialist. “Yet when you’re napping because your sleep at night feels fragile or unreliable, that can be a signal your need for sleep is not at the level required. In those cases, napping can become part of the issue, not the solution. Employ naps for brief periods for short-term problems – the main goal ought to remain a strong and predictable sleep at night.”
The Ideal Nap Length
Therefore that naps shouldn’t be long enough to disrupt your overnight rest, and ideally should not occur in the late afternoon (depending on when you sleep overnight). How long is sensible? Advice differs. In one of a prominent study on the subject, experts noted that crew members experienced up to a 54% increase in alertness plus a 34% rise in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (in detail, this involved a six-minute long sleep onset time). “My advice is setting a timer for 20-30 minutes – the majority doze off quickly,” says a specialist. “You'll find much advice around regarding the ideal number for sleeping, yet that often lead individuals to become more anxious than anything else – and the least helpful action you can do when trying to nod off is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to nap for a longer period, steer clear of the 45-60 minute window that induces that sluggish feeling, that spaced-out feeling when you wake. “The science suggests it's more effective to take an extended nap of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” explains the professor. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to send you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel groggy when you get up – whereas if you extend it a bit longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you’re likely to finish a full cycle and will probably wake up feeling more alert. But if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it will affect the quality of your sleep later that night.”
Finding an Ideal Nap Environment
Regarding exact methodologies, suggestions are diverse. A few professionals propose adopting similar routines you’d use to foster restful sleep: a peaceful area, a supportive surface and maximum darkness as is feasible. Some advise that one could just doze on the sofa in whatever light happens to be around – to prevent post-nap grogginess and to “protect” your sleeping quarters as the environment your mind associates with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is quite challenging to force,” says a sleep coach. “Without any drowsiness, it becomes harder to get comfortable and basically command yourself to fall asleep. There must be a natural inclination present to start the process to begin with. I can usually snooze in full light and wake up naturally without an alarm, however, what assists a lot of people is to anticipate an instance when they are naturally slightly tired and calmly relax into it.”
Experimentation is key, and should options are scarce – such as, if attempting to grab a quick nap on a train or in a work pod – it's acceptable to employ some accessories. “Coaching footballers, I advise that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, as they’re going to have|they will
