Listen to enough productivity gurus, making it tempting to believe that a nap is a superpower: more than a sticking plaster following a bad night’s sleep, but a route to enhanced cognition, better spirits and possibly improved athletic performance. Premier League athletes are all at it – along with professional piano players, fighters and business leaders. Yet, when you haven’t got a room for napping or a career that encourages daytime sleep, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a quick nap to justify the hassle? Can you find a surefire technique to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you truly ensure you will arise feeling better, rather than worse?
Exploring Your Reasons for Napping
“There are three primary motivations for taking a nap for many people,” says a leading sleep and circadian science researcher. “The first is what we call make-up sleep, that is what you do when you’ve had insufficient sleep the previous night. The second is prophylactic napping, where you are pre-empting a sleep deficit coming up, such as when working on night shifts. The third is called “appetitive drive”, which essentially boils down to desire: you get an opportunity to doze during the day, and it feels nice to nap.”
The primary task to do, so, is consider your reason for napping. “Naps can be genuinely useful when night sleeping gets interrupted due to causes outside your control – for instance, when you are caring for an infant, or you’re recovering from illness or strenuous activity,” says a sleep physiologist. “However, if you take a nap as your night sleep seems unreliable or broken, that can be a sign your need for sleep is not where required. In those cases, naps can become part of the issue, instead of the fix. Utilize daytime sleep as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the focus ought to remain a strong and predictable overnight rest.”
The Perfect Nap Length
This implies that daytime sleep shouldn’t be long enough to interfere with your overnight rest, and ideally should not occur in the late afternoon (based on what time you sleep in the evening). How long is sensible? Guidelines are mixed. From a prominent study on the subject, space agency scientists discovered that space travelers had up to a 54% increase in alertness plus a 34% rise in performance following a nap of 26 minutes (in detail, this involved an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest setting a timer for half an hour or less – most people are asleep in under ten minutes,” says a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of advice around regarding the ideal number for sleeping, but that tends to make people feel more anxious above all – and the least helpful action one can do when trying to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to sleep for longer, avoid the 45-60 minute window that promotes sleep inertia, that disoriented sensation upon waking. “Studies suggests it is preferable to opt for a lengthier snooze of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” notes the professor. “Three-quarters of an hour is sufficient to plunge you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel disoriented when you get up – however, if you take it slightly longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to be completing a full cycle and should wake up feeling more alert. But if you’re sleeping for 90 minutes, it may impact how you sleep later that night.”
Establishing the Perfect Sleep Space
As for exact methodologies, recommendations vary. Some experts propose employing comparable habits one would use to promote a good night’s sleep: a peaceful area, a comfortable bed and maximum darkness as is feasible. Some advise that you should just doze on the sofa in the existing light is available – to avoid post-nap grogginess and to maintain your sleeping quarters as the place your brain links with nighttime rest. “Sleep is something really tricky to will,” notes a sleep coach. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it becomes harder to lie down and basically instruct yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some drive present to initiate sleep initially. Personally, I can often snooze in broad daylight and wake up naturally without a timer, though, what aids many individuals is to look for a time when they are naturally slightly tired and just gently allow sleep to come.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and when you have few options – such as, if you’re trying to grab some shut-eye during a commute or in a work pod – it's acceptable with bringing a few tools. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I suggest that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, as they’re going to have|they will
