Hear plenty of performance gurus, and you'll be easy to believe that dozing is a superpower: not just a sticking plaster following poor sleep, but a shortcut to enhanced cognition, improved mood and perhaps improved athletic performance. Professional footballers are all at it – as do concert pianists, UFC champions and high-profile executives. Yet, when you lack a room for napping or employment that allows frequent naps, is it *truly* enough benefits to a short sleep to justify the effort? Can you find a reliable way to fall asleep fast? Plus, is it possible to truly ensure you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, instead of groggy?
Understanding Your Reasons for Napping
“We can identify three primary motivations for napping in the adult population,” notes a professor of circadian rhythm researcher. “Firstly, there's termed compensatory napping, that is what you do when you’ve had poor sleep overnight. The second is pre-emptive sleep, which involves pre-empting sleep loss coming up, such as if you’re working graveyard shifts. Finally, there's “pleasure-based sleep”, which basically boils down to desire: you have a chance to nap in the afternoon, and it's enjoyable to indulge.”
The first thing to undertake, then, is to examine your reason for napping. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when overnight rest is disturbed for reasons you cannot change – such as, for a parent of a newborn, or you’re recovering from illness or strenuous activity,” says a sleep physiologist. “However, if you take a nap since your sleep at night seems unreliable or unreliable, that can be a signal your need for sleep is not where it needs to be. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, rather than the answer. Use napping as a short-term solution for short-term problems – the main goal must always be a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”
The Optimal Nap Length
Therefore that daytime sleep must not be long enough to disrupt your nighttime sleep, and ideally are not recommended after about 3pm (depending on what time you sleep in the evening). How long is sensible? Recommendations vary. Among the most referenced research on the subject, experts noted that space travelers showed up to a 54% increase in vigilance and a 34% boost in performance post a 26-minute snooze (to be precise, this counted a six-minute long falling asleep phase). “I recommend setting a timer for half an hour or less – most people fall asleep within 10 minutes,” says a specialist. “There’s a lot of recommendations concerning the perfect length of minutes, but that tends to lead individuals to become more worried than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing you can possibly do when trying to nod off is to stress over it.”
If you plan to nap for a longer period, avoid the 45-60 minute window that encourages that sluggish feeling, that foggy state upon waking. “Studies suggests it is preferable to have an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” says the professor. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to plunge you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish when you get up – however, if you nap for slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you’re likely to finish of a sleep cycle and are likely to awaken feeling more refreshed. However, if you nap for a long period, it can influence your sleep in the evening.”
Establishing an Ideal Sleep Space
Regarding exact methodologies, suggestions are diverse. Certain specialists propose adopting comparable habits you’d use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a silent space, a comfortable bed and minimal light as you can manage. Others suggest that one could just doze on a couch in whatever light is present – to prevent that groggy feeling and to preserve your bedroom as the place your brain links with *real* sleep. “Sleep is notoriously difficult to will,” notes an expert. “If you don’t have the urge to sleep, it is more challenging to lie down and basically instruct yourself to go to sleep. You need some sleep pressure there to bring the sleep on to begin with. Personally, I can often snooze in full light and awaken on my own without an alarm, however, what assists many individuals is to wait for a moment that they’re naturally slightly tired and calmly relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and when you have few options – such as, if you’re trying to grab a quick nap during a commute or at the office – there’s nothing wrong to employ a few tools. “In my work with footballers, I recommend that they avoid becoming accustomed to sleeping in their bed, as they’re going to have|they will
