Listen to enough self-improvement podcasters, and you'll be tempting to think that a nap is a powerful tool: rather than a sticking plaster after restless night, but a route towards enhanced cognition, improved mood and perhaps a faster 5k run time. Elite footballers swear by it – and so are musicians, mixed martial artists and business leaders. Yet, when you haven’t got a room for napping or a job that permits frequent naps, can there *honestly* enough benefits to a quick nap to justify the effort? Can you find a dependable method to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you will arise feeling better, not worse?
Understanding The Reasons for Napping
“There are three primary motivations for taking a nap for many people,” explains a professor of sleep science professor. “One is termed recovery napping, which is what you do when you’ve had insufficient sleep the previous night. The second is prophylactic napping, which involves pre-empting sleep loss in the future, for example during graveyard shifts. Finally, there's “appetitive drive”, which simply comes down to desire: you have an opportunity to nap in the afternoon, and it feels nice to indulge.”
The first thing to consider, therefore, is to examine your reason for napping. “Daytime sleep can be truly beneficial when night sleeping is disturbed because of factors beyond your control – for instance, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or recovering from illness or heavy physical exertion,” states a sleep specialist. “However, if you nap as your sleep at night is unstable or broken, that can be an indicator your sleep drive is not where it should be. Under those circumstances, napping can become part of the issue, instead of the fix. Utilize daytime sleep as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the priority ought to remain a strong and predictable sleep at night.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
This means that naps shouldn’t be long enough to affect your sleep at night, and preferably should not occur in the late afternoon (contingent on when you go to bed overnight). How long is sensible? Advice differs. From the most referenced research on the subject, researchers at Nasa found that space travelers showed improvements of over 50% in vigilance and a 34% increase in performance post a 26-minute snooze (to be precise, this involved a six-minute nodding-off period). “My advice is setting a timer for half an hour or less – most people are asleep quickly,” says a specialist. “There’s a lot of advice around concerning the ideal number of minutes, but that tends to lead individuals to become more stressed above all – and the least helpful action you can do when trying to nod off is to stress over it.”
If you plan to nap for a longer period, avoid the 45-60 minute window that encourages that sluggish feeling, that spaced-out feeling when you wake. “The science indicates it’s better to opt for a lengthier snooze of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” explains the professor. “45 minutes is sufficient to put you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel groggy when you get up – however, if you take it a little longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to finish of a sleep cycle and should get up feeling more alert. Though if you're dozing for 90 minutes, it may impact the quality of your sleep in the evening.”
Establishing the Perfect Sleep Space
As for specific techniques, recommendations vary. Certain specialists recommend employing comparable habits you’d use to promote a good night’s sleep: a peaceful area, a supportive surface and minimal light as is feasible. Others suggest that one could simply nap on the sofa in the existing light is present – to avoid post-nap grogginess and to maintain your bed as the place your mind associates with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to force,” says a specialist. “Lacking the urge to sleep, it is tougher to recline and basically instruct yourself to go to sleep. You need some drive present to initiate sleep initially. I can usually snooze during the day and naturally wake up without a timer, but what helps many individuals is to look for a moment where they feel naturally feeling a bit drowsy and then simply allow sleep to come.”
Experimentation is key, and if your choices are limited – for example, if attempting to fit in some shut-eye during a commute or in a soundproof office pod – there’s nothing wrong to use some accessories. “Coaching elite athletes, I advise that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, as they’re going to have|they will
