Listen to enough performance experts, and you'll be easy to think that dozing is a superpower: more than a quick fix following restless night, but a route towards enhanced cognition, a brighter outlook and maybe a faster 5k run time. Professional soccer players are all at it – and so are professional piano players, mixed martial artists and business leaders. But if you don't have a dedicated nap-room or a job that allows daytime sleep, is it *truly* enough benefits to a quick nap to justify the hassle? Can you find a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? Plus, is it possible to really guarantee you will arise feeling refreshed, not worse?
Exploring The Drive to Snooze
“There are three main reasons for napping for many people,” notes a leading sleep science researcher. “Firstly, there's termed compensatory napping, which is what you do following a lack of sleep the night before. The second is pre-emptive sleep, which involves preparing for insufficient sleep coming up, for instance if you’re working overnight shifts. The third reason is “hedonic napping”, which essentially boils down to wanting: you get a moment to nap during the day, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The initial step to do, then, is to think about your reason for napping. “Naps can be genuinely useful when night sleeping is disturbed due to causes outside your control – for example, when you are a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing from illness or strenuous activity,” says a sleep expert. “But if you take a nap because your night sleep seems unreliable or broken, that’s often an indicator your sleep drive is not as strong as required. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, not the solution. Utilize daytime sleep as a short-term solution for temporary issues – the priority must always be a strong and predictable sleep at night.”
The Optimal Nap Length
Therefore that daytime sleep must not be too extended to interfere with your nighttime sleep, and preferably should not occur after about 3pm (depending on the time you retire at night). How long is sensible? Advice differs. In one of a prominent study on the subject, space agency scientists noted that space travelers had improvements of over 50% in alertness and a 34% boost in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (technically, this counted a six-minute long nodding-off period). “I recommend setting a timer for 20 to 30 minutes – many individuals doze off quickly,” notes a specialist. “There’s a lot of advice around about the ideal number for sleeping, yet that often make people feel more stressed above all – and the least helpful action one can do while aiming to nod off is to be anxious.”
If you plan to take an extended nap, bypass the period between 45 and 60 minutes that encourages sleep grogginess, that foggy state when you wake. “The science would say it’s better to have an extended nap of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” says the expert. “Three-quarters of an hour is long enough to plunge you into slow-wave sleep and you’re more likely to feel sluggish when you wake up – however, if you take it slightly longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be on the end a natural sleep cycle and should awaken feeling more refreshed. But if you’re sleeping for 90 minutes, it will affect the quality of your sleep later that night.”
Establishing an Ideal Sleep Space
Regarding precise methods, recommendations vary. Certain specialists recommend adopting similar routines one would use to promote quality nighttime sleep: a silent space, a supportive surface and minimal light as you can manage. Alternatively, experts propose that one could merely snooze in a chair in the existing light happens to be around – to prevent sleep inertia and to preserve your bed as the space your brain links with nighttime rest. “Falling asleep is something really tricky to command,” notes a sleep coach. “Lacking any drowsiness, it is tougher to lie down and basically command yourself to fall asleep. There’s got to be some sleep pressure present to initiate sleep in the first place. For me, it's possible to nap in broad daylight and naturally wake up without a timer, however, what assists many individuals is to anticipate an instance that they’re naturally slightly tired and just gently allow sleep to come.”
It’s worth experimenting, and if you have few options – for example, if attempting to squeeze in some shut-eye on a train or at the office – it is perfectly fine to use a few tools. “When I’m working with elite athletes, I recommend that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, as they’re going to have|they will
