Listen to a few productivity experts, and you'll be easy to think that napping is a superpower: not just a quick fix following a bad night’s sleep, but a route towards improved recall, better spirits and maybe improved athletic performance. Professional athletes are all at it – as do concert pianists, UFC champions and business leaders. Yet, when you haven’t got a special sleep space or a job that encourages frequent naps, is it *truly* enough benefits to a short sleep for it to be worth the kerfuffle? Does there exist a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you honestly promise you’ll wake up feeling better, not worse?
Identifying Your Reasons for Napping
“Experts note three primary motivations for daytime sleep in the adult population,” explains an expert sleep and circadian science specialist. “The first is known as make-up sleep, which is the action you take when you’ve had insufficient sleep the previous night. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, which involves preparing for insufficient sleep ahead, for example if you’re working overnight shifts. Finally, there's “hedonic napping”, which simply comes down to the wish: there is a moment to nap in the afternoon, and it's enjoyable to nap.”
The first thing to do, so, is to think about why you want to nap. “Daytime sleep can be truly beneficial when nighttime sleep is being disrupted due to causes you cannot change – for example, for a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing from illness or strenuous activity,” explains a sleep expert. “Yet when you nap because your nighttime sleep is unstable or broken, that can be a signal your sleep drive is not at the level it should be. Under those circumstances, napping can become part of the issue, not the solution. Utilize daytime sleep as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the main goal ought to remain a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”
The Perfect Nap Duration
This means that naps must not be long enough to interfere with your sleep at night, and best shouldn’t take place in the late afternoon (depending on what time you sleep at night). What's a reasonable length? Advice differs. From the most referenced research regarding daytime sleep, space agency scientists discovered that crew members had improvements of over 50% in attentiveness and a 34% increase in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (in detail, this involved an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting a timer for 20 to 30 minutes – the majority are asleep in under ten minutes,” explains a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of advice around regarding the optimal amount for sleeping, however, that can make people feel more anxious above all – and the most counterproductive thing you can do when attempting to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, steer clear of the period between 45 and 60 minutes that induces sleep grogginess, that foggy state upon waking. “Studies would say it's more effective to take a longer nap of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” explains the expert. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to send you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel groggy when you wake up – however, if you extend it a little longer to 60 or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to finish a natural sleep cycle and are likely to get up feeling more refreshed. Though if you’re sleeping for an hour and a half, it may impact your sleep that night.”
Finding the Right Snooze Setting
As for precise methods, advice differs. Some experts recommend adopting comparable habits you’d use to promote a good night’s sleep: a silent space, a comfortable bed and minimal light as possible. Some advise that you should merely snooze in a chair in the existing light happens to be around – to prevent sleep inertia and to preserve your sleeping quarters as the environment your brain links with *real* sleep. “Sleep is notoriously difficult to force,” says a sleep coach. “Without the urge to sleep, it is tougher to recline and basically instruct yourself to go to sleep. There must be some drive available to bring the sleep on initially. Personally, I can often take a nap in broad daylight and wake up naturally without an alarm, though, what aids a lot of people is to look for a time when they are naturally slightly tired and calmly ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and if your choices are limited – such as, if attempting to grab a quick nap on a train or at the office – it is perfectly fine to employ sleep aids. “Coaching elite athletes, I advise that they don’t get used to napping in bed, because they’re going to have|they will
