Listen to enough performance experts, and it’s tempting to believe that a nap is a powerful tool: not just a quick fix after poor sleep, but a path towards a better memory, improved mood and possibly improved athletic performance. Professional footballers swear by it – and so are concert pianists, UFC champions and media moguls. However, if you haven’t got a room for napping or a job that encourages regular snoozing, is it *truly* worthwhile perks to a short sleep for it to be worth the hassle? Is there a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you truly ensure you’ll wake up feeling better, instead of groggy?
Understanding The Reasons for Napping
“Experts note three primary motivations for taking a nap among most adults,” says a leading sleep and circadian science professor. “One is known as recovery napping, that is what you do when you’ve had insufficient sleep the previous night. The second is pre-emptive sleep, which involves pre-empting insufficient sleep coming up, for instance if you’re working on night shifts. The third is called “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially boils down to wanting: you have a moment to doze during the day, and it feels nice to nap.”
The initial step to undertake, then, is consider why you want to nap. “Naps can be really helpful when nighttime sleep is disturbed due to causes beyond your control – such as, when you are caring for an infant, or recovering after being ill or strenuous activity,” explains a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you nap as your night sleep seems unreliable or broken, that can be an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it needs to be. In such situations, naps can become part of the problem, rather than the answer. Employ naps for brief periods to address immediate needs – the main goal must always be a strong and predictable overnight rest.”
The Optimal Nap Duration
This means that naps ought not to be long enough to disrupt your nighttime sleep, and preferably are not recommended after about 3pm (based on what time you sleep overnight). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. From the most referenced research on the subject, experts discovered that space travelers showed a boost of up to 54% in vigilance and a 34% increase in cognitive performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this included a six-minute falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest setting an alarm for half an hour or less – most people are asleep quickly,” notes a sleep expert. “There is plenty of advice around about the perfect length of time, but that tends to lead individuals to become more worried above all – and the most counterproductive thing you can possibly do when attempting to get to sleep is to stress over it.”
Should you decide to sleep for longer, steer clear of the period between 45 and 60 minutes that induces that sluggish feeling, that disoriented sensation when you wake. “Research indicates it is preferable to take a longer nap of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” notes the sleep scientist. “Three-quarters of an hour is enough time to put you into slow-wave sleep and it is more probable to feel disoriented when you wake up – however, if you take it a bit longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be completing of a sleep cycle and will probably get up feeling more alert. Though if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it will affect your sleep later that night.”
Finding the Perfect Nap Environment
Regarding precise methods, suggestions are diverse. A few professionals propose employing similar routines you’d use to encourage restful sleep: a silent space, a supportive surface and as much darkness as you can manage. Others suggest that it's fine to just doze in a chair with ambient lighting is present – to prevent post-nap grogginess and to preserve your bed as the place your brain links with proper sleep. “Napping is quite challenging to force,” says a sleep coach. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it becomes harder to recline and basically command yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some drive available to initiate sleep to begin with. For me, it's possible to nap in full light and wake up naturally alarm-free, however, what assists most folks is to anticipate a moment when they are naturally feeling a bit drowsy and then simply relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if options are scarce – for instance, if attempting to squeeze in 40 winks on a train or in a work pod – it is perfectly fine to employ a few tools. “When I’m working with footballers, I recommend that they not rely on napping in bed, since they’re going to have|they will
