Tune into a few performance gurus, and you'll be tempting to convince yourself that a nap is a powerful tool: more than a band-aid after poor sleep, but a shortcut towards a better memory, a brighter outlook and perhaps improved athletic performance. Premier League footballers are all at it – and so are musicians, fighters and media moguls. However, if you lack a room for napping or a career that allows regular snoozing, can there *honestly* enough benefits to a quick nap for it to be worth the effort? Does there exist a reliable way to nod off promptly? And can you honestly promise you’ll wake up feeling improved, not worse?
Understanding Your Reasons for Napping
“We can identify three key drivers for taking a nap among most adults,” explains a leading circadian rhythm researcher. “Firstly, there's known as compensatory napping, which is what happens after experiencing a lack of sleep the night before. The second is pre-emptive sleep, which involves anticipating sleep loss ahead, for instance during overnight shifts. Finally, there's “hedonic napping”, which simply comes down to wanting: you have a moment to doze in the daytime, and it's pleasant to do it.”
The first thing to undertake, then, is to think about your nap motivation. “Napping can be really helpful when night sleeping gets interrupted because of factors beyond your control – for instance, when you are a new parent, or you’re recovering after being ill or intense exercise,” says a sleep physiologist. “However, if you’re napping as your night sleep feels fragile or broken, that’s often a signal your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as required. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, instead of the fix. Utilize daytime sleep as a short-term solution for temporary issues – the priority must always be a strong and predictable sleep at night.”
The Perfect Nap Length
Therefore that daytime sleep ought not to be long enough to interfere with your overnight rest, and preferably shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on when you go to bed overnight). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. In one of the most-cited studies regarding daytime sleep, experts discovered that crew members showed improvements of over 50% in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (technically, this counted a six-minute long sleep onset time). “My advice is setting a timer for half an hour or less – the majority are asleep within 10 minutes,” says a sleep coach. “There is plenty of advice around regarding the ideal number of time, yet that often cause people to feel more stressed than anything – and the worst thing you can do while aiming to get to sleep is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to nap for a longer period, steer clear of the 45 to 60 minute range that promotes sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “Studies suggests it’s better to opt for a lengthier snooze lasting 60-90 minutes than a medium-length one,” says the professor. “Three-quarters of an hour is sufficient to put you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish when you get up – whereas if you take it a bit longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you will probably to be completing a natural sleep cycle and should wake up feeling more rejuvenated. But if you nap for a long period, it will affect how you sleep that night.”
Establishing the Perfect Nap Environment
Regarding exact methodologies, advice differs. Certain specialists suggest using the same protocol you use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and maximum darkness as you can manage. Alternatively, experts propose that it's fine to simply nap on the sofa in the existing light is available – both to discourage sleep inertia and to preserve your bed as the space your mind associates with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is quite challenging to command,” says a sleep coach. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it is more challenging to recline and essentially command yourself to nod off. There’s got to be a natural inclination there to initiate sleep initially. For me, it's possible to nap in full light and naturally wake up without an alarm, though, what aids a lot of people is to wait for a time that they’re naturally slightly tired and then simply ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and should you have few options – such as, if you’re trying to fit in some shut-eye on a train or in a work pod – it's acceptable with bringing sleep aids. “When I’m working with elite athletes, I suggest that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, because they’re going to have|they will
