Hear enough self-improvement gurus, and it’s easy to convince yourself that a nap is a powerful tool: rather than a quick fix after a bad night’s sleep, but a shortcut towards enhanced cognition, improved mood and maybe improved athletic performance. Professional athletes are all at it – along with concert pianists, fighters and media moguls. Yet, when you don't have a room for napping or a career that permits regular snoozing, are there *really* enough benefits to a burst of shut-eye to justify the effort? Is there a surefire technique to nod off promptly? Plus, is it possible to really guarantee you will arise feeling better, rather than worse?
Exploring Your Nap Motivation
“Experts note three key drivers for napping in the adult population,” explains a professor of sleep and circadian science professor. “One is termed make-up sleep, which is what you do when you’ve had poor sleep the night before. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, where you are preparing for sleep loss coming up, such as if you’re working on night shifts. The third is called “appetitive drive”, which simply comes down to desire: you have a chance to sleep during the day, and it's pleasant to nap.”
The first thing to do, therefore, is to think about your nap motivation. “Napping can be really helpful when nighttime sleep is being disrupted for reasons you cannot change – for instance, when you are a parent of a newborn, or you’re recovering from illness or heavy physical exertion,” explains a sleep expert. “But if you take a nap since your night sleep seems unreliable or broken, that’s often a signal your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as it needs to be. In such situations, naps can become part of the issue, rather than the answer. Employ naps for brief periods to address immediate needs – the focus ought to remain a strong and predictable overnight rest.”
The Optimal Nap Duration
This means that naps ought not to be too extended to disrupt your overnight rest, and ideally are not recommended in the late afternoon (based on what time you go to bed at night). What duration is wise? Advice differs. Among a prominent study about napping, experts discovered that crew members had improvements of over 50% in attentiveness and a 34% increase in task performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this included a six-minute long falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting a timer for half an hour or less – many individuals fall asleep within 10 minutes,” says a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of advice around about the optimal amount of minutes, however, that can cause people to feel more stressed than anything else – and the worst thing you can possibly do while aiming to fall asleep is worry about it.”
Should you decide to nap for a longer period, steer clear of the 45-60 minute window that promotes that sluggish feeling, that foggy state upon waking. “The science would say it is preferable to take a longer nap lasting 60-90 minutes than a medium-length one,” says the sleep scientist. “Forty-five minutes is enough time to plunge you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel sluggish when you get up – however, if you take it a bit longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you’re likely to finish a natural sleep cycle and will probably wake up feeling more refreshed. But if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it will affect your sleep later that night.”
Finding the Right Nap Environment
Regarding precise methods, advice differs. Certain specialists propose employing similar routines one would use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a peaceful area, a comfortable bed and as much darkness as possible. Some advise that one could just doze on the sofa in the existing light is present – both to discourage that groggy feeling and to maintain your bed as the environment your mind associates with nighttime rest. “Napping is quite challenging to command,” says an expert. “Lacking any sleepiness, it becomes harder to recline and essentially tell yourself to nod off. There must be some drive available to start the process initially. For me, it's possible to nap in broad daylight and wake up naturally alarm-free, but what helps a lot of people is to wait for a moment when they are naturally feeling a bit drowsy and then simply relax into it.”
It’s worth experimenting, and if options are scarce – such as, if attempting to grab some shut-eye on a train or at the office – there’s nothing wrong to use a few tools. “Coaching footballers, I suggest that they not rely on sleeping in their bed, as they’re going to have|they will
