Hear enough self-improvement gurus, and you'll be simple to believe that napping is a powerful tool: not just a quick fix after a bad night’s sleep, but a shortcut towards improved recall, better spirits and maybe improved athletic performance. Elite footballers are all at it – and so are professional piano players, mixed martial artists and high-profile executives. Yet, when you haven’t got a special sleep space or a job that permits regular snoozing, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a quick nap for it to be worth the effort? Can you find a reliable way to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you will get up feeling refreshed, rather than worse?
Identifying Your Drive to Snooze
“We can identify three primary motivations for taking a nap in the adult population,” explains a leading sleep and circadian science specialist. “The first is what we call recovery napping, which is what you do after experiencing poor sleep the night before. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, when you are pre-empting insufficient sleep ahead, such as if you’re working on night shifts. The third is called “appetitive drive”, which basically is about wanting: there is a chance to doze in the daytime, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The initial step to consider, therefore, is to think about your reason for napping. “Daytime sleep can be truly beneficial when overnight rest gets interrupted because of factors you cannot change – such as, for a parent of a newborn, or recovering from sickness or intense exercise,” states a sleep specialist. “However, if you’re napping because your night sleep seems unreliable or poor, that can be a sign your body's sleep pressure is not where it needs to be. Under those circumstances, napping can become part of the issue, not the solution. Employ naps as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the focus should still be a robust and regular overnight rest.”
The Perfect Snooze Time
Therefore that naps ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to interfere with your nighttime sleep, and ideally shouldn’t take place post-3 p.m. (contingent on what time you retire in the evening). What duration is wise? Advice differs. From the most-cited studies about napping, researchers at Nasa found that crew members showed improvements of over 50% in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in cognitive performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this included a six-minute long nodding-off period). “I recommend using an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – many individuals are asleep in under ten minutes,” explains a sleep coach. “You'll find much recommendations regarding the perfect length of minutes, however, that can lead individuals to become more worried than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing one can do while aiming to nod off is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to sleep for longer, bypass the 45-60 minute window that induces that sluggish feeling, that foggy state upon waking. “Research would say it's more effective to have an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes than a medium-length one,” notes the sleep scientist. “45 minutes is enough time to send you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel groggy upon awakening – however, if you extend it a bit longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be on the end a natural sleep cycle and are likely to awaken feeling more refreshed. However, if you’re sleeping for 90 minutes, it may impact how you sleep later that night.”
Finding the Perfect Sleep Space
Regarding specific techniques, suggestions are diverse. A few professionals recommend adopting similar routines you’d use to foster a good night’s sleep: a peaceful area, a supportive surface and as much darkness as you can manage. Others suggest that you should simply nap on a couch in whatever light is available – to prevent sleep inertia and to maintain your sleeping quarters as the place you associate with proper sleep. “Napping is quite challenging to force,” notes an expert. “Lacking any sleepiness, it is more challenging to lie down and essentially command yourself to go to sleep. You need a natural inclination present to bring the sleep on initially. Personally, I can often nap in full light and naturally wake up alarm-free, however, what assists many individuals is to anticipate an instance where they feel naturally slightly tired and calmly ease into sleep.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and when you have few options – such as, if attempting to fit in a quick nap while traveling or in a soundproof office pod – it's acceptable to employ a few tools. “Coaching professional sportspeople, I advise that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, since they’re going to have|they will
