Hear a few performance gurus, making it simple to convince yourself that a nap is a secret weapon: not just a band-aid following poor sleep, but a path towards enhanced cognition, a brighter outlook and maybe improved athletic performance. Elite athletes are all at it – along with professional piano players, mixed martial artists & media moguls. But if you haven’t got a room for napping or employment that permits regular snoozing, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a quick nap for it to be worth the kerfuffle? Can you find a dependable method to fall asleep fast? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you will get up feeling refreshed, not worse?
Identifying Your Drive to Snooze
“We can identify three primary motivations for daytime sleep in the adult population,” explains an expert sleep and circadian science specialist. “Firstly, there's known as make-up sleep, which is what happens following a lack of sleep the night before. Secondly, there's prophylactic napping, when you are pre-empting a sleep deficit in the future, such as when working graveyard shifts. Finally, there's “hedonic napping”, which basically is about desire: there is a chance to sleep during the day, and it feels nice to do it.”
The initial step to do, so, is to think about why you want to nap. “Napping can be truly beneficial when night sleeping is being disrupted for reasons outside your control – for example, if you’re a new parent, or you’re recovering after being ill or strenuous activity,” states a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you’re napping since your nighttime sleep feels fragile or unreliable, that’s often an indicator your sleep drive is not at the level it should be. In those cases, napping can become part of the problem, not the solution. Use napping as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the priority must always be a robust and regular night’s sleep.”
The Optimal Snooze Time
This implies that naps must not be sufficiently lengthy to interfere with your nighttime sleep, and best shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (depending on what time you retire in the evening). How long is sensible? Recommendations vary. Among the most-cited studies about napping, experts discovered that crew members showed up to a 54% increase in alertness and a 34% boost in performance following a nap of 26 minutes (to be precise, this included an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest setting a timer for half an hour or less – many individuals fall asleep within 10 minutes,” notes a specialist. “There’s a lot of guidance out there about the perfect length of time, however, that can make people feel more worried above all – and the worst thing you can possibly do when attempting to nod off is worry about it.”
If you plan to sleep for longer, bypass the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep inertia, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “Studies would say it is preferable to take an extended nap of 60 to 90 minutes than a medium-length one,” explains the professor. “Forty-five minutes is enough time to send you into slow-wave sleep and you’re more likely to feel disoriented when you get up – whereas if you nap for a bit longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you will probably to be completing a full cycle and should awaken feeling more rejuvenated. Though if you’re sleeping for a long period, it will affect how you sleep later that night.”
Creating the Perfect Nap Environment
Regarding specific techniques, suggestions are diverse. A few professionals suggest adopting the same protocol one would use to encourage quality nighttime sleep: a silent space, a comfortable bed and maximum darkness as is feasible. Others suggest that you should merely snooze on a couch in whatever light happens to be around – to avoid that groggy feeling and to preserve your bed as the space your brain links with *real* sleep. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to command,” notes an expert. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it becomes harder to recline and practically instruct yourself to fall asleep. There’s got to be some sleep pressure there to bring the sleep on initially. Personally, I can often nap in broad daylight and awaken on my own alarm-free, though, what aids a lot of people is to look for a time when they are naturally slightly tired and calmly allow sleep to come.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and should options are scarce – such as, if you’re trying to fit in a quick nap while traveling or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong to employ a few tools. “In my work with footballers, I advise that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, because they’re going to have|they will
