Hear enough performance gurus, making it tempting to believe that dozing is a superpower: rather than a quick fix after restless night, but a path towards enhanced cognition, improved mood and possibly a faster 5k run time. Professional athletes do it regularly – as do professional piano players, mixed martial artists & media moguls. However, if you lack a dedicated nap-room or a career that allows regular snoozing, is it *truly* worthwhile perks to a short sleep for it to be worth the effort? Is there a surefire technique to nod off promptly? Plus, is it possible to truly ensure you will arise feeling refreshed, not worse?
Understanding Your Reasons for Napping
“Experts note three main reasons for daytime sleep in the adult population,” explains an expert sleep science researcher. “One is known as make-up sleep, which is what you do following a lack of sleep the previous night. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, where you are pre-empting a sleep deficit coming up, for instance if you’re working overnight shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which basically boils down to the wish: there is a chance to doze in the afternoon, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The initial step to consider, therefore, is to examine why you want to nap. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when night sleeping gets interrupted due to causes beyond your control – for example, when you are a parent of a newborn, or you’re recovering from illness or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep specialist. “But if you’re napping as your sleep at night is unstable or poor, that is frequently a sign your sleep drive is not as strong as it should be. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into a contributing factor, rather than the answer. Employ naps as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the priority must always be a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”
The Optimal Nap Duration
This means that daytime sleep must not be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your overnight rest, and ideally are not recommended post-3 p.m. (based on what time you retire overnight). How long is sensible? Recommendations vary. Among a prominent study about napping, researchers at Nasa found that astronauts showed up to a 54% increase in vigilance plus a 34% rise in performance following a nap of 26 minutes (to be precise, this included a six-minute sleep onset time). “My advice is using an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – many individuals doze off within 10 minutes,” notes a sleep coach. “There is plenty of recommendations about the perfect length of time, yet that often lead individuals to become more stressed above all – and the least helpful action one can do when attempting to get to sleep 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 spaced-out feeling when you awaken. “Research would say it is preferable to have an extended nap of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” notes the professor. “45 minutes is sufficient to put you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel disoriented upon awakening – while if you nap for slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you will probably to be completing of a sleep cycle and should wake up feeling more refreshed. However, if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it will affect your sleep later that night.”
Finding an Ideal Nap Environment
As for precise methods, suggestions are diverse. A few professionals recommend adopting similar routines you use to promote a good night’s sleep: a silent space, a supportive surface and as much darkness as possible. Others suggest that one could just doze in a chair in the existing light happens to be around – both to discourage that groggy feeling and to maintain your bedroom as the environment your brain links with *real* sleep. “Falling asleep is quite challenging to force,” says a specialist. “Without any drowsiness, it becomes harder to lie down and basically tell yourself to fall asleep. You need some drive available to bring the sleep on to begin with. Personally, I can often nap during the day and naturally wake up without an alarm, though, what aids many individuals is to look for an instance that they’re naturally slightly tired and calmly relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if options are scarce – for instance, if attempting to grab some shut-eye during a commute or at the office – it is perfectly fine to employ some accessories. “When I’m working with footballers, I recommend that they avoid becoming accustomed to napping in bed, since they’re going to have|they will
