Tune into enough self-improvement experts, making it tempting to think that dozing is a superpower: not just a band-aid following restless night, but a path to improved recall, better spirits and maybe quicker running times. Premier League soccer players do it regularly – along with professional piano players, mixed martial artists and business leaders. But if you haven’t got a room for napping or a job that allows frequent naps, are there *really* worthwhile perks to a quick nap for it to be worth the hassle? Does there exist a surefire technique to nod off promptly? And can you honestly promise you will get up feeling better, rather than worse?
Exploring Your Reasons for Napping
“There are three primary motivations for taking a nap in the adult population,” explains an expert sleep science professor. “One is termed compensatory napping, essentially the action you take when you’ve had poor sleep overnight. Another is prophylactic napping, when you are anticipating insufficient sleep in the future, for example if you’re working on night shifts. The third is called “hedonic napping”, which essentially boils down to wanting: you have an opportunity to doze in the afternoon, and it's enjoyable to indulge.”
The first thing to undertake, then, is to examine your nap motivation. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when night sleeping gets interrupted because of factors beyond your control – for instance, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing from sickness or strenuous activity,” says a sleep expert. “But if you nap since your night sleep is unstable or broken, that is frequently a signal your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as it needs to be. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, rather than the answer. Use napping as a short-term solution for temporary issues – the main goal should still be a strong and predictable overnight rest.”
The Perfect Nap Duration
This implies that napping must not be too extended to affect your overnight rest, and ideally are not recommended post-3 p.m. (depending on what time you retire at night). What's a reasonable length? Advice differs. Among the most-cited studies regarding daytime sleep, researchers at Nasa found that astronauts had improvements of over 50% in vigilance and a 34% boost in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (technically, this included an initial six-minute sleep onset time). “I’d suggest using an alarm for half an hour or less – most people doze off quickly,” notes a sleep coach. “There is plenty of advice around concerning the perfect length of minutes, however, that can cause people to feel more worried above all – and the most counterproductive thing you can possibly do when trying to nod off is worry about it.”
Should you decide to nap for a longer period, bypass the period between 45 and 60 minutes that encourages sleep grogginess, that foggy state when you awaken. “Studies would say it's more effective to opt for an extended nap of one to one and a half hours rather than a mid-length nap,” explains the expert. “Forty-five minutes is enough time to plunge you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel sluggish upon awakening – however, if you nap for a bit longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to be on the end a natural sleep cycle and will probably wake up feeling more rejuvenated. But if you're dozing for 90 minutes, it may impact the quality of your sleep that night.”
Creating an Ideal Sleep Space
Regarding precise methods, advice differs. A few professionals propose adopting similar routines you use to promote quality nighttime sleep: a silent space, a supportive surface and minimal light as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that one could simply nap in a chair with ambient lighting is present – both to discourage post-nap grogginess and to “protect” your bed as the space your mind associates with proper sleep. “Sleep is something really tricky to force,” notes an expert. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it is more challenging to lie down and basically instruct yourself to nod off. You need some drive there to bring the sleep on to begin with. For me, it's possible to nap during the day and awaken on my own alarm-free, but what helps many individuals is to look for an instance when they are naturally slightly tired and calmly relax into it.”
It’s worth experimenting, and if options are scarce – for example, if you’re trying to grab a quick nap on a train or at the office – it's acceptable to use sleep aids. “Coaching elite athletes, I recommend that they don’t get used to napping in bed, because they’re going to have|they will
