Hear plenty of self-improvement podcasters, and you'll be simple to think that napping is a superpower: not just a band-aid following restless night, but a route to a better memory, a brighter outlook and possibly improved athletic performance. Professional footballers swear by it – as do concert pianists, mixed martial artists and business leaders. But if you haven’t got a special sleep space or a job that permits daytime sleep, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a short sleep for it to be worth the kerfuffle? Can you find a reliable way to fall asleep fast? And can you really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, rather than worse?
Exploring Your Drive to Snooze
“Experts note three key drivers for taking a nap among most adults,” explains a leading sleep science professor. “Firstly, there's what we call compensatory napping, essentially what you do after experiencing a lack of sleep overnight. Another is preparatory napping, when you are preparing for sleep loss coming up, for instance during graveyard shifts. The third is called “hedonic napping”, which simply boils down to desire: you get a moment to sleep in the daytime, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The first thing to do, therefore, is to think about why you want to nap. “Naps can be truly beneficial when overnight rest is disturbed due to causes beyond your control – for instance, if you’re a new parent, or if you are healing after being ill or strenuous activity,” states a sleep expert. “Yet when you take a nap as your nighttime sleep feels fragile or broken, that is frequently an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it should be. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, rather than the answer. Utilize daytime sleep for brief periods to address immediate needs – the priority ought to remain a solid and consistent sleep at night.”
The Perfect Snooze Time
Therefore that napping shouldn’t be too extended to interfere with your overnight rest, and best are not recommended post-3 p.m. (based on the time you go to bed in the evening). What duration is wise? Advice differs. In one of the most-cited studies about napping, researchers at Nasa discovered that space travelers experienced a boost of up to 54% in attentiveness and a 34% increase in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (to be precise, this involved an initial six-minute sleep onset time). “My advice is setting a timer for 20 to 30 minutes – most people doze off in under ten minutes,” notes a specialist. “There’s a lot of guidance out there concerning the perfect length of minutes, however, that can cause people to feel more anxious than anything – and the worst thing you can possibly do when attempting 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 that sluggish feeling, that disoriented sensation when you wake. “Research indicates it's more effective to opt for a longer nap of 60 to 90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” notes the expert. “Three-quarters of an hour is enough time to send you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel sluggish when you wake up – whereas if you take it a little longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to be on the end of a sleep cycle and should awaken feeling more alert. However, if you’re sleeping for an hour and a half, it will affect how you sleep in the evening.”
Creating the Perfect Nap Environment
As for exact methodologies, recommendations vary. Certain specialists recommend adopting the same protocol one would use to encourage a good night’s sleep: a peaceful area, a comfortable bed and minimal light as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that one could just doze in a chair in whatever light happens to be around – to prevent post-nap grogginess and to maintain your bed as the environment you associate with nighttime rest. “Falling asleep is something really tricky to force,” says a sleep coach. “Without any sleepiness, it is tougher to lie down and practically instruct yourself to go to sleep. There’s got to be some sleep pressure there to initiate sleep to begin with. For me, it's possible to snooze during the day and wake up naturally alarm-free, however, what assists many individuals is to wait for a moment when they are naturally somewhat sleepy and calmly relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and should you have few options – for example, when aiming to fit in a quick nap during a commute or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong to use a few tools. “In my work with elite athletes, I advise that they not rely on their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
