Hear a few performance podcasters, and it’s easy to believe that dozing is a secret weapon: not just a quick fix after restless night, but a path towards enhanced cognition, a brighter outlook and perhaps quicker running times. Professional athletes swear by it – as do musicians, fighters & business leaders. However, if you haven’t got a dedicated nap-room or a job that encourages daytime sleep, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye for it to be worth the effort? Does there exist a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you honestly promise you will arise feeling improved, rather than worse?
Understanding The Nap Motivation
“Experts note three key drivers for daytime sleep in the adult population,” explains a professor of sleep and circadian science specialist. “Firstly, there's known as make-up sleep, essentially what you do when you’ve had poor sleep the night before. The second is pre-emptive sleep, when you are pre-empting insufficient sleep ahead, such as during on night shifts. The third is called “hedonic napping”, which basically is about desire: you have a chance to doze during the day, and it's pleasant to do it.”
The first thing to consider, so, is consider your reason for napping. “Daytime sleep can be really helpful when overnight rest gets interrupted due to causes you cannot change – for example, for caring for an infant, or you’re recovering from illness or intense exercise,” explains a sleep expert. “However, if you nap because your nighttime sleep is unstable or poor, that is frequently a signal your need for sleep is not as strong as it needs to be. Under those circumstances, napping can become a contributing factor, rather than the answer. Employ naps as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the main goal should still be a robust and regular night’s sleep.”
The Perfect Nap Length
This means that napping shouldn’t be sufficiently lengthy to affect your overnight rest, and ideally shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (depending on what time you retire overnight). What duration is wise? Advice differs. From a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, researchers at Nasa noted that crew members had up to a 54% increase in vigilance plus a 34% rise in cognitive performance following a nap of 26 minutes (to be precise, this involved a six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – the majority fall asleep in under ten minutes,” notes a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of advice around about the perfect length of minutes, yet that often make people feel more worried above all – and the least helpful action you can do when trying to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, avoid the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep grogginess, that disoriented sensation upon waking. “Research indicates it is preferable to opt for a lengthier snooze of 60 to 90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” explains the sleep scientist. “45 minutes is long enough to put you into a deep sleep stage and it is more probable to feel groggy upon awakening – while if you nap for a bit longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to be on the end a full cycle and will probably awaken feeling more refreshed. However, if you’re sleeping for an hour and a half, it will affect how you sleep in the evening.”
Finding an Ideal Snooze Setting
Regarding specific techniques, advice differs. A few professionals propose employing similar routines you’d use to promote a good night’s sleep: a quiet room, a supportive surface and minimal light as is feasible. Some advise that you should simply nap in a chair with ambient lighting happens to be around – to avoid that groggy feeling and to maintain your bed as the environment your brain links with proper sleep. “Sleep is notoriously difficult to force,” says a sleep coach. “Lacking the urge to sleep, it becomes harder to get comfortable and basically command yourself to nod off. You need a natural inclination available to bring the sleep on initially. For me, it's possible to snooze in broad daylight and naturally wake up without an alarm, but what helps a lot of people is to anticipate a time that they’re naturally slightly tired and then simply allow sleep to come.”
Experimentation is key, and when your choices are limited – such as, when aiming to squeeze in 40 winks on a train or in a work pod – it is perfectly fine to employ sleep aids. “In my work with elite athletes, I suggest that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, because they’re going to have|they will
