Listen to a few productivity gurus, making it simple to believe that napping is a secret weapon: rather than a band-aid after poor sleep, but a path to enhanced cognition, improved mood and possibly a faster 5k run time. Premier League footballers swear by it – and so are musicians, fighters & media moguls. But if you haven’t got a room for napping or a career that allows regular snoozing, can there *honestly* sufficient advantages to a short sleep to justify the kerfuffle? Is there a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Plus, is it possible to truly ensure you’ll wake up feeling improved, rather than worse?
Exploring The Reasons for Napping
“We can identify three main reasons for napping among most adults,” says a professor of sleep science researcher. “One is what we call recovery napping, which is what you do following insufficient sleep the previous night. Another is prophylactic napping, where you are pre-empting a sleep deficit coming up, for instance when working on night shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which basically comes down to desire: you get an opportunity to nap in the daytime, and it's enjoyable to do it.”
The first thing to undertake, then, is to examine why you want to nap. “Naps can be genuinely useful when night sleeping is disturbed due to causes beyond your control – for instance, if you’re a new parent, or if you are healing from sickness or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep expert. “But if you take a nap since your nighttime sleep feels fragile or broken, that is frequently a signal your need for sleep is not where it should be. In those cases, daytime sleep can turn into a contributing factor, instead of the fix. Use napping for brief periods for short-term problems – the focus must always be a solid and consistent night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Nap Length
This implies that naps ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your sleep at night, and preferably shouldn’t take place in the late afternoon (based on the time you go to bed in the evening). How long is sensible? Guidelines are mixed. From a prominent study about napping, experts noted that space travelers showed up to a 54% increase in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in task performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this counted a six-minute nodding-off period). “My advice is using an alarm for half an hour or less – the majority are asleep within 10 minutes,” notes a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of recommendations regarding the ideal number of minutes, yet that often make people feel more worried than anything – and the least helpful action you can possibly do when trying to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to sleep for longer, steer clear of the period between 45 and 60 minutes that encourages that sluggish feeling, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “Research suggests it is preferable to take a lengthier snooze of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” explains the expert. “Three-quarters of an hour is long enough to send you into a deep sleep stage making it more likely to feel sluggish when you get up – whereas if you take it slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be on the end a natural sleep cycle and will probably get up feeling more alert. However, if you're dozing for a long period, it can influence the quality of your sleep that night.”
Creating the Perfect Snooze Setting
As for precise methods, advice differs. A few professionals suggest adopting comparable habits you use to foster a good night’s sleep: a quiet room, a supportive surface and minimal light as you can manage. Others suggest that you should simply nap in a chair with ambient lighting is present – both to discourage that groggy feeling and to “protect” your sleeping quarters as the place your brain links with nighttime rest. “Sleep is notoriously difficult to command,” explains a sleep coach. “Without any sleepiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and essentially command yourself to go to sleep. There must be some sleep pressure available to start the process in the first place. I can usually nap in full light and awaken on my own alarm-free, however, what assists many individuals is to look for a time that they’re naturally feeling a bit drowsy and then simply relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and should your choices are limited – for example, if you’re trying to squeeze in 40 winks on a train or at the office – it is perfectly fine with bringing some accessories. “Coaching footballers, I recommend that they not rely on their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
