Listen to plenty of performance gurus, and you'll be easy to believe that napping is a powerful tool: rather than a quick fix after restless night, but a route towards improved recall, a brighter outlook and perhaps quicker running times. Professional footballers swear by it – and so are concert pianists, mixed martial artists and media moguls. Yet, when you haven’t got a room for napping or employment that permits regular snoozing, are there *really* 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? Furthermore, can you truly ensure you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, rather than worse?
Understanding Your Reasons for Napping
“Experts note three primary motivations for taking a nap for many people,” explains an expert sleep and circadian science specialist. “One is what we call make-up sleep, essentially what you do after experiencing poor sleep overnight. The second is pre-emptive sleep, where you are pre-empting a sleep deficit coming up, such as during graveyard shifts. The third is called “hedonic napping”, which essentially comes down to desire: you get an opportunity to doze in the afternoon, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The initial step to consider, then, is to examine why you want to nap. “Napping can be really helpful when nighttime sleep is being disrupted due to causes outside your control – for example, when you are a parent of a newborn, or you’re recovering from illness or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep specialist. “Yet when you’re napping because your sleep at night is unstable or broken, that can be an indicator your need for sleep is not at the level it should be. In those cases, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, not the solution. Utilize daytime sleep as a short-term solution for temporary issues – the main goal ought to remain a solid and consistent night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Nap Length
Therefore that napping shouldn’t be long enough to affect your nighttime sleep, and best shouldn’t take place post-3 p.m. (based on when you sleep overnight). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. From the most-cited studies on the subject, researchers at Nasa noted that crew members showed improvements of over 50% in attentiveness and a 34% boost in performance after a 26-minute nap (technically, this included a six-minute long falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest setting an alarm for 20-30 minutes – many individuals doze off within 10 minutes,” says a specialist. “There’s a lot of advice around concerning the optimal amount for sleeping, however, that can make people feel more stressed than anything else – and the least helpful action you can do when attempting to fall asleep is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to take an extended nap, bypass the period between 45 and 60 minutes that encourages sleep inertia, that foggy state upon waking. “The science indicates it’s better to opt for a lengthier snooze of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” notes the sleep scientist. “45 minutes is enough time to plunge you into a deep sleep stage making it more likely to feel disoriented when you wake up – however, if you nap for a bit longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you’re likely to be on the end a full cycle and should awaken feeling more rejuvenated. However, if you're dozing for a long period, it can influence how you sleep that night.”
Establishing an Ideal Sleep Space
As for specific techniques, recommendations vary. Some experts suggest employing comparable habits one would use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a supportive surface and as much darkness as you can manage. Some advise that you should simply nap in a chair in the existing light is present – both to discourage sleep inertia and to preserve your bed as the environment your mind associates with *real* sleep. “Sleep is quite challenging to command,” explains an expert. “Without any drowsiness, it is more challenging to recline and practically instruct yourself to go to sleep. There must be some sleep pressure available to bring the sleep on to begin with. Personally, I can often nap during the day and awaken on my own without a timer, but what helps most folks is to anticipate an instance where they feel naturally feeling a bit drowsy and just gently relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if your choices are limited – such as, if you’re trying to squeeze in a quick nap during a commute or at the office – it is perfectly fine with bringing sleep aids. “When I’m working with elite athletes, I advise that they not rely on napping in bed, since they’re going to have|they will
