Tune into a few productivity gurus, and it’s tempting to believe that dozing is a superpower: more than a quick fix following a bad night’s sleep, but a path to enhanced cognition, better spirits and perhaps a faster 5k run time. Professional athletes do it regularly – as do musicians, fighters and media moguls. However, if you lack a room for napping or a career that allows regular snoozing, is it *truly* enough benefits to a short sleep to justify the hassle? Is there a dependable method to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you truly ensure you will arise feeling refreshed, instead of groggy?
Identifying Your Nap Motivation
“Experts note three main reasons for daytime sleep among most adults,” says a professor of circadian rhythm professor. “One is known as make-up sleep, essentially what happens when you’ve had a lack of sleep overnight. Another is prophylactic napping, where you are preparing for sleep loss ahead, for instance during overnight shifts. The third is called “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially is about wanting: you have an opportunity to sleep during the day, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The initial step to do, so, is to examine your reason for napping. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when nighttime sleep gets interrupted due to causes outside your control – for example, if you’re a new parent, or recovering from sickness or strenuous activity,” says a sleep specialist. “Yet when you nap since your nighttime sleep seems unreliable or unreliable, that’s often a sign your sleep drive is not as strong as required. In those cases, napping can become part of the issue, rather than the answer. Utilize daytime sleep as a temporary measure to address immediate needs – the main goal should still be a robust and regular sleep at night.”
The Optimal Nap Length
This means that napping ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to affect your sleep at night, and preferably shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on what time you retire at night). How long is sensible? Advice differs. From the most referenced research on the subject, experts discovered that astronauts had a boost of up to 54% in attentiveness and a 34% boost in performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this involved an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting an alarm for 20-30 minutes – most people doze off within 10 minutes,” notes a specialist. “There’s a lot of recommendations regarding the perfect length of time, yet that often make people feel more worried than anything – and the most counterproductive thing you can possibly do when trying to nod off is to be anxious.”
If you’re going to take an extended nap, bypass the 45-60 minute window that promotes that sluggish feeling, that foggy state upon waking. “Studies suggests it’s better to have a lengthier snooze of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” notes the professor. “45 minutes is long enough to plunge you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel disoriented when you wake up – while if you take it a little longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you’re likely to be on the end a full cycle and are likely to get up feeling more alert. But if you nap for a long period, it may impact how you sleep in the evening.”
Establishing an Ideal Nap Environment
Regarding exact methodologies, advice differs. Certain specialists propose employing similar routines one would use to promote a good night’s sleep: a quiet room, a supportive surface and maximum darkness as you can manage. Some advise that you should just doze in a chair in whatever light is present – to avoid sleep inertia and to “protect” your bedroom as the place your brain links with *real* sleep. “Falling asleep is quite challenging to will,” explains an expert. “Lacking any sleepiness, it is tougher to get comfortable and practically tell yourself to fall asleep. You need some drive available to start the process to begin with. Personally, I can often snooze during the day and wake up naturally without a timer, but what helps most folks is to anticipate a moment when they are naturally somewhat sleepy and then simply allow sleep to come.”
Experimentation is key, and when you have few options – for example, if you’re trying to fit in a quick nap during a commute or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong to use a few tools. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I suggest that they avoid becoming accustomed to their own bed for naps, as they’re going to have|they will
