Listen to enough productivity podcasters, making it simple to convince yourself that dozing is a powerful tool: not just a band-aid after poor sleep, but a route towards a better memory, better spirits and perhaps improved athletic performance. Premier League footballers swear by it – as do professional piano players, mixed martial artists and high-profile executives. Yet, when you haven’t got a room for napping or a career that allows daytime sleep, can there *honestly* sufficient advantages to a quick nap to justify the hassle? Can you find a dependable method to fall asleep fast? And can you truly ensure you will get up feeling improved, instead of groggy?
Identifying Your Drive to Snooze
“There are three primary motivations for taking a nap among most adults,” explains an expert sleep and circadian science researcher. “One is termed make-up sleep, that is what you do after experiencing a lack of sleep the previous night. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, where you are pre-empting sleep loss ahead, for example if you’re working on night shifts. The third is called “appetitive drive”, which essentially boils down to desire: you get a moment to doze during the day, and it feels nice to nap.”
The first thing to undertake, then, is consider why you want to nap. “Naps can be really helpful when night sleeping is disturbed for reasons beyond your control – for example, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing after being ill or heavy physical exertion,” explains a sleep specialist. “But if you nap as your nighttime sleep seems unreliable or poor, that can be a sign your sleep drive is not where it needs to be. In those cases, naps can become a contributing factor, instead of the fix. Use napping as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the focus ought to remain a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Nap Length
This implies that daytime sleep shouldn’t be sufficiently lengthy to affect your overnight rest, and ideally should not occur after about 3pm (based on what time you retire in the evening). What duration is wise? Recommendations vary. Among the most-cited studies regarding daytime sleep, researchers at Nasa noted that space travelers had up to a 54% increase in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in cognitive performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this involved a six-minute long nodding-off period). “My advice is setting an alarm for half an hour or less – most people are asleep within 10 minutes,” says a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of advice around regarding the perfect length of minutes, but that tends to make people feel more worried above all – and the worst thing you can possibly do when trying to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
If you plan to nap for a longer period, steer clear of the period between 45 and 60 minutes that promotes sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling when you wake. “Studies indicates it is preferable to have a lengthier snooze of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” says the expert. “Forty-five minutes is enough time to put you into slow-wave sleep and it is more probable to feel groggy when you get up – while if you extend it a bit longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you will probably to be completing of a sleep cycle and are likely to awaken feeling more alert. Though if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it may impact your sleep that night.”
Establishing the Perfect Snooze Setting
When it comes to specific techniques, advice differs. A few professionals recommend using the same protocol you use to foster a good night’s sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and minimal light as is feasible. Alternatively, experts propose that it's fine to simply nap on the sofa with ambient lighting is available – to avoid that groggy feeling and to maintain your bedroom as the place your mind associates with nighttime rest. “Falling asleep is something really tricky to force,” says a sleep coach. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it becomes harder to get comfortable and basically tell yourself to nod off. There must be a natural inclination present to initiate sleep in the first place. I can usually snooze during the day and naturally wake up alarm-free, but what helps many individuals is to wait for a moment when they are naturally somewhat sleepy and then simply ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and should your choices are limited – for example, when aiming to squeeze in some shut-eye during a commute or in a work pod – it is perfectly fine to use some accessories. “When I’m working with elite athletes, I advise that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, as they’re going to have|they will
