Listen to enough productivity podcasters, and you'll be easy to believe that napping is a superpower: more than a quick fix following restless night, but a path towards a better memory, better spirits and perhaps quicker running times. Professional soccer players do it regularly – and so are concert pianists, mixed martial artists & media moguls. However, if you lack a special sleep space or employment that encourages frequent naps, can there *honestly* enough benefits to a short sleep to justify the hassle? Can you find a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you truly ensure you’ll wake up feeling better, not worse?
Exploring Your Nap Motivation
“We can identify three key drivers for daytime sleep for many people,” says an expert sleep science researcher. “Firstly, there's termed make-up sleep, that is what happens after experiencing insufficient sleep the night before. Another is pre-emptive sleep, where you are pre-empting insufficient sleep coming up, such as during graveyard shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which simply comes down to desire: you get a chance to doze in the daytime, and it's enjoyable to indulge.”
The primary task to undertake, so, is to think about your reason for napping. “Napping can be truly beneficial when nighttime sleep is disturbed for reasons you cannot change – such as, for a parent of a newborn, or recovering from illness or strenuous activity,” states a sleep specialist. “However, if you nap since your night sleep is unstable or poor, that is frequently a signal your sleep drive is not as strong as it needs to be. In such situations, napping can become part of the issue, instead of the fix. Utilize daytime sleep as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the priority should still be a robust and regular overnight rest.”
The Optimal Nap Length
This implies that napping ought not to be long enough to disrupt your sleep at night, and best should not occur in the late afternoon (depending on when you go to bed in the evening). What's a reasonable length? Recommendations vary. In one of the most-cited studies about napping, researchers at Nasa noted that crew members had a boost of up to 54% in alertness plus a 34% rise in cognitive performance following a nap of 26 minutes (in detail, this included a six-minute long nodding-off period). “My advice is setting a timer for 20-30 minutes – most people fall asleep within 10 minutes,” explains a specialist. “There is plenty of guidance out there about the optimal amount of minutes, but that tends to cause people to feel more stressed than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing you can do while aiming to get to sleep is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to nap for a longer period, bypass the 45-60 minute window that encourages sleep grogginess, that foggy state upon waking. “Studies would say it's more effective to take an extended nap of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” notes the professor. “45 minutes is enough time to put you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel disoriented upon awakening – whereas if you nap for slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be completing of a sleep cycle and should get up feeling more rejuvenated. However, if you're dozing for 90 minutes, it may impact how you sleep in the evening.”
Establishing the Perfect Nap Environment
When it comes to specific techniques, recommendations vary. A few professionals recommend adopting similar routines one would use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a silent space, a comfortable bed and minimal light as you can manage. Some advise that one could simply nap in a chair in the existing light is available – to prevent sleep inertia and to maintain your bedroom as the place your brain links with nighttime rest. “Sleep is something really tricky to will,” explains a sleep coach. “Without the urge to sleep, it is tougher to get comfortable and practically tell yourself to go to sleep. There must be some drive there to initiate sleep initially. I can usually nap in broad daylight and naturally wake up without an alarm, however, what assists a lot of people is to anticipate an instance where they feel naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and should options are scarce – for instance, if you’re trying to squeeze in a quick nap while traveling or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong to employ a few tools. “In my work with footballers, I suggest that they not rely on their own bed for naps, as they’re going to have|they will
