Hear enough self-improvement experts, and you'll be tempting to convince yourself that a nap is a powerful tool: not just a quick fix after poor sleep, but a shortcut towards improved recall, a brighter outlook and maybe a faster 5k run time. Elite athletes do it regularly – and so are professional piano players, UFC champions and media moguls. But if you haven’t got a room for napping or employment that allows frequent naps, is it *truly* enough benefits to a burst of shut-eye to justify the kerfuffle? Can you find a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you honestly promise you will arise feeling refreshed, rather than worse?
Exploring The Drive to Snooze
“We can identify three primary motivations for daytime sleep for many people,” notes an expert sleep and circadian science specialist. “One is termed compensatory napping, essentially what happens after experiencing poor sleep the previous night. Secondly, there's prophylactic napping, which involves preparing for insufficient sleep in the future, for instance if you’re working on night shifts. Finally, there's “appetitive drive”, which simply comes down to wanting: you have a moment to nap in the afternoon, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The first thing to do, so, is to think about your reason for napping. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when nighttime sleep is being disrupted for reasons beyond your control – for example, when you are caring for an infant, or recovering from sickness or heavy physical exertion,” states a sleep expert. “But if you’re napping because your night sleep is unstable or unreliable, that is frequently an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not where it needs to be. Under those circumstances, naps can become a contributing factor, not the solution. Employ naps as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the main goal must always be a solid and consistent night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
This implies that napping must not be long enough to interfere with your overnight rest, and best shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on when you sleep in the evening). How long is sensible? Guidelines are mixed. From a prominent study on the subject, space agency scientists discovered that crew members experienced improvements of over 50% in vigilance plus a 34% rise in performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this included a six-minute sleep onset time). “I’d suggest setting a timer for 20 to 30 minutes – many individuals are asleep quickly,” notes a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of guidance out there about the optimal amount of minutes, yet that often cause people to feel more stressed than anything else – and the worst thing you can possibly do while aiming to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, bypass the 45-60 minute window that encourages that sluggish feeling, that disoriented sensation when you wake. “The science indicates it is preferable to have a longer nap of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” notes the professor. “45 minutes is enough time to plunge you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel groggy when you get up – whereas if you nap for a bit longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to be completing a full cycle and will probably awaken feeling more alert. However, if you're dozing for a long period, it may impact how you sleep in the evening.”
Finding an Ideal Nap Environment
Regarding exact methodologies, advice differs. Some experts propose adopting comparable habits one would use to encourage quality nighttime sleep: a peaceful area, a supportive surface and maximum darkness as possible. Some advise that you should simply nap on a couch with ambient lighting is available – to avoid sleep inertia and to preserve your bed as the space your brain links with nighttime rest. “Sleep is something really tricky to force,” explains a specialist. “Without any sleepiness, it becomes harder to get comfortable and basically instruct yourself to nod off. You need some sleep pressure there to initiate sleep initially. I can usually snooze during the day and wake up naturally without an alarm, however, what assists a lot of people is to look for a time that they’re naturally slightly tired and just gently allow sleep to come.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and when your choices are limited – for example, if attempting to squeeze in some shut-eye during a commute or at the office – there’s nothing wrong to use some accessories. “In my work with footballers, I recommend that they avoid becoming accustomed to their own bed for naps, because they’re going to have|they will
