Hear a few performance experts, making it tempting to believe that napping is a powerful tool: rather than a sticking plaster following poor sleep, but a route towards enhanced cognition, better spirits and maybe a faster 5k run time. Elite athletes swear by it – and so are musicians, fighters and business leaders. Yet, when you lack a dedicated nap-room or a job that encourages regular snoozing, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye to merit the kerfuffle? Can you find a reliable way to fall asleep fast? Plus, is it possible to really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling better, rather than worse?
Exploring Your Reasons for Napping
“We can identify three key drivers for napping among most adults,” notes a leading sleep and circadian science professor. “The first is known as make-up sleep, that is the action you take when you’ve had insufficient sleep overnight. The second is prophylactic napping, which involves pre-empting insufficient sleep coming up, for example when working graveyard shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which simply comes down to desire: there is an opportunity to sleep in the afternoon, and it's enjoyable to do it.”
The first thing to undertake, then, is to examine your nap motivation. “Daytime sleep can be really helpful 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 after being ill or strenuous activity,” explains a sleep specialist. “However, if you’re napping as your sleep at night feels fragile or broken, that can be an indicator your sleep drive is not where required. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, rather than the answer. Use napping for brief periods to address immediate needs – the priority ought to remain a robust and regular sleep at night.”
The Perfect Nap Length
Therefore that daytime sleep shouldn’t be long enough to affect your nighttime sleep, and best are not recommended post-3 p.m. (based on when you retire at night). How long is sensible? Recommendations vary. In one of the most referenced research about napping, space agency scientists noted that space travelers showed a boost of up to 54% in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (in detail, this involved a six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – the majority are asleep in under ten minutes,” explains a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of advice around concerning the perfect length of time, yet that often lead individuals to become more stressed than anything else – and the least helpful action one can do while aiming to nod off is to be anxious.”
If you’re going to take an extended nap, avoid the 45 to 60 minute range that encourages that sluggish feeling, that spaced-out feeling when you wake. “Research would say it’s better to have a lengthier snooze of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” notes the sleep scientist. “Forty-five minutes is enough time to send you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel disoriented when you get up – whereas if you nap for a bit longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you will probably to be completing of a sleep cycle and will probably wake up feeling more refreshed. Though if you’re sleeping for 90 minutes, it may impact how you sleep that night.”
Creating an Ideal Sleep Space
Regarding precise methods, suggestions are diverse. Certain specialists propose adopting comparable habits you use to foster a good night’s sleep: a silent space, a comfortable bed and minimal light as possible. Some advise that one could just doze on the sofa in the existing light is present – to prevent post-nap grogginess and to maintain your bedroom as the environment your brain links with proper sleep. “Sleep is quite challenging to force,” says an expert. “Lacking any drowsiness, it becomes harder to get comfortable and basically command yourself to fall asleep. You need some drive available to bring the sleep on in the first place. I can usually take a nap during the day and awaken on my own alarm-free, however, what assists many individuals is to anticipate a moment where they feel naturally slightly tired and then simply relax into it.”
It’s worth experimenting, and when you have few options – such as, if attempting to grab a quick nap on a train or at the office – it is perfectly fine to employ a few tools. “In my work with footballers, I suggest that they don’t get used to napping in bed, since they’re going to have|they will
