Hear enough productivity gurus, making it tempting to believe that a nap is a secret weapon: more than a band-aid following poor sleep, but a shortcut towards improved recall, better spirits and maybe quicker running times. Professional footballers are all at it – as do concert pianists, UFC champions and media moguls. Yet, when you haven’t got a special sleep space or a career that encourages regular snoozing, are there *really* enough benefits to a quick nap to merit the effort? Is there a surefire technique to nod off promptly? And can you honestly promise you will get up feeling better, not worse?
Exploring The Nap Motivation
“Experts note three primary motivations for napping among most adults,” says a leading circadian rhythm researcher. “Firstly, there's known as compensatory napping, which is what you do after experiencing insufficient sleep the previous night. Secondly, there's preparatory napping, which involves preparing for insufficient sleep coming up, for instance if you’re working overnight shifts. The third reason is “hedonic napping”, which essentially boils down to the wish: there is a chance to nap during the day, and it feels nice to do it.”
The first thing to undertake, therefore, is to examine your nap motivation. “Napping can be really helpful when night sleeping gets interrupted for reasons outside your control – such as, when you are caring for an infant, or recovering after being ill or strenuous activity,” explains a sleep specialist. “Yet when you’re napping since your sleep at night is unstable or poor, that is frequently an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it needs to be. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, instead of the fix. Employ naps as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the priority ought to remain a solid and consistent sleep at night.”
The Ideal Nap Length
This implies that napping shouldn’t be too extended to disrupt your nighttime sleep, and best should not occur after about 3pm (contingent on the time you go to bed overnight). How long is sensible? Advice differs. In one of the most referenced research about napping, space agency scientists discovered that space travelers had a boost of up to 54% in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in performance post a 26-minute snooze (to be precise, this included a six-minute sleep onset time). “My advice is using an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – many individuals are asleep in under ten minutes,” says a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of recommendations about the perfect length of time, but that tends to cause people to feel more stressed than anything else – and the worst thing you can possibly do when attempting 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 encourages sleep inertia, that foggy state upon waking. “Research would say it's more effective to opt for an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes than a medium-length one,” says the sleep scientist. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to put you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel disoriented when you wake up – however, if you nap for a little longer to a full sleep cycle, you will probably to finish of a sleep cycle and should get up feeling more refreshed. However, if you nap for 90 minutes, it can influence the quality of your sleep in the evening.”
Finding an Ideal Nap Environment
Regarding exact methodologies, suggestions are diverse. Some experts propose adopting comparable habits you’d use to encourage quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and minimal light as possible. Others suggest that you should just doze in a chair with ambient lighting is present – both to discourage sleep inertia and to “protect” your sleeping quarters as the environment you associate with *real* sleep. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to will,” explains a sleep coach. “Without any sleepiness, it is more challenging to recline and practically tell yourself to nod off. You need some sleep pressure available to bring the sleep on to begin with. Personally, I can often take a nap during the day and naturally wake up without a timer, but what helps most folks is to wait for an instance that they’re naturally feeling a bit drowsy and then simply allow sleep to come.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and should you have few options – for example, if attempting to grab some shut-eye during a commute or in a work pod – it's acceptable with bringing sleep aids. “In my work with elite athletes, I recommend that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, because they’re going to have|they will
