Tune into a few productivity gurus, and you'll be easy to convince yourself that napping is a secret weapon: not just a sticking plaster following restless night, but a route towards enhanced cognition, better spirits and perhaps a faster 5k run time. Elite soccer players swear by it – along with concert pianists, mixed martial artists and media moguls. Yet, when you haven’t got a dedicated nap-room or a career that permits regular snoozing, can there *honestly* worthwhile perks to a quick nap to merit the hassle? Is there a dependable method to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling better, not worse?
Understanding Your Reasons for Napping
“Experts note three main reasons for napping among most adults,” says a leading sleep and circadian science specialist. “Firstly, there's what we call recovery napping, essentially what happens when you’ve had a lack of sleep the previous night. The second is prophylactic napping, where you are preparing for sleep loss ahead, for instance if you’re working graveyard shifts. The third is called “pleasure-based sleep”, which simply is about wanting: you get a chance to doze during the day, and it feels nice to nap.”
The primary task to consider, then, is to examine why you want to nap. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when overnight rest gets interrupted due to causes outside your control – such as, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or recovering from illness or intense exercise,” says a sleep expert. “But if you take a nap because your sleep at night seems unreliable or poor, that’s often a sign your body's sleep pressure is not where it should be. In those cases, napping can become part of the problem, rather than the answer. Use napping as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the priority ought to remain a robust and regular night’s sleep.”
The Optimal Nap Duration
This implies that napping ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to affect your overnight rest, and ideally are not recommended in the late afternoon (based on the time you retire in the evening). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. Among a prominent study on the subject, researchers at Nasa noted that crew members had improvements of over 50% in attentiveness and a 34% boost in performance following a nap of 26 minutes (technically, this included a six-minute sleep onset time). “I recommend using an alarm for 20-30 minutes – most people fall asleep in under ten minutes,” explains a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of guidance out there about the perfect length of time, yet that often lead individuals to become more stressed than anything else – and the least helpful action you can do while aiming to fall asleep is to be anxious.”
If you’re going to take an extended nap, avoid the period between 45 and 60 minutes that promotes sleep inertia, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “The science indicates it is preferable to take a longer nap lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” says the sleep scientist. “Three-quarters of an hour is enough time to put you into a deep sleep stage and it is more probable to feel disoriented when you get up – while if you take it a bit longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be on the end of a sleep cycle and will probably awaken feeling more rejuvenated. However, if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it will affect how you sleep that night.”
Creating the Perfect Snooze Setting
As for specific techniques, recommendations vary. Certain specialists suggest adopting the same protocol you use to foster restful sleep: a peaceful area, a comfortable bed and minimal light as possible. Others suggest that you should just doze in a chair in whatever light is available – both to discourage that groggy feeling and to preserve your bed as the space you associate with nighttime rest. “Napping is something really tricky to will,” explains a specialist. “If you don’t have the urge to sleep, it is tougher to recline and basically command yourself to nod off. There must be some drive there to start the process in the first place. For me, it's possible to snooze during the day and awaken on my own without an alarm, though, what aids many individuals is to anticipate an instance when they are naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and if you have few options – for example, if you’re trying to grab some shut-eye while traveling or at the office – there’s nothing wrong with bringing sleep aids. “In my work with footballers, I suggest that they avoid becoming accustomed to their own bed for naps, because they’re going to have|they will
