Hear enough self-improvement podcasters, and it’s tempting to convince yourself that napping is a secret weapon: not just a quick fix following restless night, but a path towards a better memory, improved mood and possibly quicker running times. Professional soccer players swear by it – as do professional piano players, fighters & business leaders. However, if you haven’t got a dedicated nap-room or a career that permits daytime sleep, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a quick nap to justify the effort? Can you find a surefire technique to fall asleep fast? And can you truly ensure you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, not worse?
Identifying Your Reasons for Napping
“We can identify three key drivers for napping among most adults,” explains a leading circadian rhythm researcher. “Firstly, there's what we call compensatory napping, which is what happens following a lack of sleep the previous night. The second is prophylactic napping, which involves pre-empting sleep loss coming up, for example during graveyard shifts. The third is called “appetitive drive”, which simply is about wanting: you get a chance to nap in the daytime, and it feels nice to do it.”
The primary task to consider, then, is to think about your nap motivation. “Napping can be really helpful when night sleeping is being disrupted for reasons outside your control – for example, when you are a new parent, or recovering after being ill or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep physiologist. “However, if you nap since your nighttime sleep seems unreliable or unreliable, that’s often a signal your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as it needs to be. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into a contributing factor, rather than the answer. Employ naps as a short-term solution for short-term problems – the priority must always be a solid and consistent overnight rest.”
The Perfect Nap Length
This means that daytime sleep ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your overnight rest, and preferably shouldn’t take place post-3 p.m. (contingent on when you go to bed in the evening). What's a reasonable length? Guidelines are mixed. In one of a prominent study on the subject, experts found that astronauts had a boost of up to 54% in attentiveness and a 34% increase in task performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this involved an initial six-minute sleep onset time). “I’d suggest using an alarm for half an hour or less – many individuals fall asleep in under ten minutes,” says a specialist. “You'll find much recommendations about the perfect length for sleeping, yet that often make people feel more stressed above all – and the worst thing you can possibly do while aiming to nod off is to stress over it.”
Should you decide to sleep for longer, steer clear of the period between 45 and 60 minutes that encourages that sluggish feeling, that foggy state upon waking. “Research suggests it’s better to have a longer nap lasting 60-90 minutes than a medium-length one,” says the professor. “45 minutes is long enough to put you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish when you get up – whereas if you take it a bit longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to be on the end of a sleep cycle and are likely to wake up feeling more alert. But if you're dozing for 90 minutes, it can influence how you sleep that night.”
Establishing the Right Snooze Setting
As for precise methods, recommendations vary. A few professionals propose using similar routines you’d use to promote quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and minimal light as is feasible. Some advise that one could simply nap on the sofa with ambient lighting is present – to prevent that groggy feeling and to preserve your bedroom as the space you associate with nighttime rest. “Napping is something really tricky to will,” notes a specialist. “If you don’t have the urge to sleep, it becomes harder to recline and essentially tell yourself to go to sleep. You need some drive present to bring the sleep on initially. I can usually snooze during the day and naturally wake up alarm-free, however, what assists many individuals is to look for a moment when they are naturally slightly tired and calmly relax into it.”
Experimentation is key, and if you have few options – for example, if attempting to squeeze in 40 winks while traveling or at the office – there’s nothing wrong to use a few tools. “Coaching footballers, I recommend that they avoid becoming accustomed to napping in bed, as they’re going to have|they will
