Listen to a few productivity experts, and you'll be simple to convince yourself that napping is a powerful tool: more than a quick fix after poor sleep, but a route to enhanced cognition, better spirits and maybe a faster 5k run time. Elite footballers are all at it – as do concert pianists, UFC champions & media moguls. But if you lack a dedicated nap-room or a career that permits frequent naps, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye to merit the effort? Can you find a dependable method to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you will get up feeling better, not worse?
Understanding Your Reasons for Napping
“There are three key drivers for napping among most adults,” notes an expert circadian rhythm researcher. “One is termed recovery napping, which is what you do when you’ve had poor sleep the night before. Another is pre-emptive sleep, which involves pre-empting insufficient sleep coming up, for example during graveyard shifts. The third is called “hedonic napping”, which essentially boils down to wanting: there is a moment to doze in the afternoon, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The initial step to do, so, is to examine your reason for napping. “Naps can be genuinely useful when overnight rest gets interrupted for reasons you cannot change – such as, when you are a new parent, or you’re recovering from illness or heavy physical exertion,” states a sleep physiologist. “However, if you nap because your sleep at night is unstable or unreliable, that is frequently a sign your sleep drive is not as strong as required. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, rather than the answer. Employ naps as a temporary measure to address immediate needs – the priority should still be a solid and consistent overnight rest.”
The Perfect Snooze Time
This means that napping ought not to be too extended to affect your sleep at night, and preferably are not recommended post-3 p.m. (depending on the time you go to bed overnight). What's a reasonable length? Recommendations vary. In one of the most-cited studies on the subject, space agency scientists discovered that space travelers showed up to a 54% increase in alertness plus a 34% rise in performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this counted a six-minute sleep onset time). “My advice is setting an alarm for half an hour or less – many individuals doze off quickly,” explains a specialist. “You'll find much advice around concerning the ideal number of time, yet that often lead individuals to become more anxious than anything else – and the worst thing one can do while aiming to nod off is worry about it.”
If you’re going to take an extended nap, bypass the 45 to 60 minute range that encourages sleep inertia, that foggy state when you awaken. “Research indicates it is preferable to take an extended nap of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” says the sleep scientist. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to plunge you into slow-wave sleep and you’re more likely to feel sluggish when you wake up – while if you nap for 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 get up feeling more rejuvenated. However, if you nap for an hour and a half, it will affect your sleep in the evening.”
Creating an Ideal Sleep Space
When it comes to specific techniques, suggestions are diverse. Some experts propose employing similar routines you’d use to encourage restful sleep: a silent space, a supportive surface and maximum darkness as you can manage. Some advise that one could just doze on a couch with ambient lighting is available – both to discourage that groggy feeling and to preserve your sleeping quarters as the place your brain links with proper sleep. “Napping is quite challenging to command,” explains an expert. “If you don’t have the urge to sleep, it is more challenging to lie down and essentially instruct yourself to nod off. You need some sleep pressure available to initiate sleep in the first place. Personally, I can often snooze in broad daylight and awaken on my own alarm-free, however, what assists most folks is to anticipate an instance when they are naturally somewhat sleepy and then simply relax into it.”
Experimentation is key, and if you have few options – such as, when aiming to grab a quick nap while traveling or in a soundproof office pod – there’s nothing wrong to employ sleep aids. “Coaching elite athletes, I advise that they not rely on their own bed for naps, as they’re going to have|they will
