Hear enough productivity podcasters, making it simple to convince yourself that napping is a secret weapon: rather than a sticking plaster following restless night, but a shortcut towards a better memory, better spirits and possibly improved athletic performance. Premier League athletes do it regularly – as do musicians, mixed martial artists & media moguls. Yet, when you lack a room for napping or a job that encourages regular snoozing, can there *honestly* worthwhile perks to a quick nap to justify the effort? Can you find a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you truly ensure you’ll wake up feeling better, instead of groggy?
Identifying The Nap Motivation
“Experts note three main reasons for daytime sleep in the adult population,” explains a professor of sleep and circadian science professor. “Firstly, there's what we call compensatory napping, that is what happens after experiencing a lack of sleep the night before. Another is prophylactic napping, which involves pre-empting a sleep deficit ahead, for instance when working graveyard shifts. The third is called “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially is about wanting: you get a moment to nap in the afternoon, and it's pleasant to nap.”
The first thing to undertake, then, is consider why you want to nap. “Naps can be really helpful when nighttime sleep is disturbed due to causes outside your control – for instance, if you’re caring for an infant, or you’re recovering from sickness or heavy physical exertion,” explains a sleep specialist. “Yet when you nap as your sleep at night seems unreliable or unreliable, that can be a signal your need for sleep is not at the level it needs to be. In those cases, napping can become part of the issue, instead of the fix. Employ naps as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the main goal should still be a solid and consistent overnight rest.”
The Optimal Snooze Time
This means that naps shouldn’t be long enough to interfere with your nighttime sleep, and preferably are not recommended in the late afternoon (based on what time you go to bed at night). What's a reasonable length? Guidelines are mixed. From a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, space agency scientists discovered that astronauts had up to a 54% increase in alertness plus a 34% rise in task performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this included a six-minute long sleep onset time). “My advice is setting a timer for 20 to 30 minutes – many individuals doze off quickly,” notes a sleep coach. “There is plenty of recommendations about the ideal number for sleeping, yet that often lead individuals to become more stressed than anything – and the worst thing you can do while aiming to nod off is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to nap for a longer period, steer clear of the period between 45 and 60 minutes that promotes sleep inertia, that foggy state when you wake. “The science would say it’s better to take a longer nap of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” says the expert. “Three-quarters of an hour is sufficient to put you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel groggy when you wake up – while if you extend it slightly longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you will probably to be completing of a sleep cycle and are likely to get up feeling more rejuvenated. Though if you nap for a long period, it will affect your sleep later that night.”
Creating the Right Nap Environment
When it comes to precise methods, recommendations vary. A few professionals suggest employing comparable habits one would use to encourage quality nighttime sleep: a silent space, a comfortable bed and minimal light as you can manage. Others suggest that one could merely snooze on a couch in the existing light is present – to prevent that groggy feeling and to preserve your sleeping quarters as the environment your mind associates with *real* sleep. “Napping is something really tricky to will,” says an expert. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it becomes harder to get comfortable and essentially command yourself to nod off. There must be some sleep pressure available to initiate sleep to begin with. For me, it's possible to nap during the day and awaken on my own alarm-free, but what helps most folks is to wait for a time where they feel naturally slightly tired and calmly relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and when options are scarce – such as, if you’re trying to grab a quick nap on a train or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong with bringing some accessories. “When I’m working with footballers, I suggest that they not rely on their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
