Hear a few productivity gurus, making it simple to believe that dozing is a secret weapon: more than a sticking plaster following a bad night’s sleep, but a route towards a better memory, a brighter outlook and maybe improved athletic performance. Premier League athletes do it regularly – as do musicians, mixed martial artists and high-profile executives. However, if you lack a room for napping or employment that permits daytime sleep, is it *truly* worthwhile perks to a short sleep to merit the kerfuffle? Is there a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, rather than worse?
Exploring Your Nap Motivation
“Experts note three key drivers for napping among most adults,” notes a professor of sleep science professor. “Firstly, there's known as compensatory napping, that is what you do when you’ve had a lack of sleep the previous night. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, when you are pre-empting insufficient sleep ahead, for instance when working overnight shifts. The third is called “pleasure-based sleep”, which basically boils down to desire: there is an opportunity to doze in the daytime, and it feels nice to do it.”
The first thing to consider, therefore, is to examine your nap motivation. “Napping can be genuinely useful when night sleeping is disturbed due to causes outside your control – such as, when you are a new parent, or recovering after being ill or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you’re napping as your night sleep is unstable or unreliable, that is frequently an indicator your need for sleep is not as strong as it should be. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, not the solution. Utilize daytime sleep as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the focus should still be a robust and regular night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Nap Length
Therefore that napping ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your sleep at night, and preferably are not recommended after about 3pm (contingent on what time you retire overnight). How long is sensible? Advice differs. From the most-cited studies on the subject, researchers at Nasa discovered that crew members had up to a 54% increase in alertness plus a 34% rise in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (technically, this included a six-minute nodding-off period). “My advice is setting a timer for half an hour or less – most people doze off in under ten minutes,” notes a sleep expert. “There is plenty of recommendations about the perfect length of time, however, that can make people feel more worried above all – and the least helpful action one can do while aiming to fall asleep is worry about it.”
If you’re going to nap for a longer period, avoid the period between 45 and 60 minutes that encourages sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling when you wake. “Research indicates it is preferable to take a lengthier snooze of 60 to 90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” says the sleep scientist. “45 minutes is sufficient to put you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish when you get up – while if you nap for slightly longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to be completing a natural sleep cycle and should get up feeling more refreshed. Though if you’re sleeping for 90 minutes, it can influence the quality of your sleep that night.”
Finding the Right Nap Environment
When it comes to exact methodologies, advice differs. Some experts propose adopting comparable habits you’d use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a peaceful area, a supportive surface and minimal light as you can manage. Some advise that one could just doze on the sofa in whatever light is present – to prevent that groggy feeling and to preserve your sleeping quarters as the environment you associate with proper sleep. “Sleep is something really tricky to command,” says a sleep coach. “Lacking the urge to sleep, it becomes harder to recline and basically instruct yourself to nod off. You need some sleep pressure present to bring the sleep on to begin with. For me, it's possible to snooze in full light and wake up naturally without an alarm, however, what assists most folks is to wait for a moment where they feel naturally feeling a bit drowsy and calmly ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and if your choices are limited – for instance, when aiming to squeeze in 40 winks on a train or at the office – there’s nothing wrong with bringing some accessories. “When I’m working with elite athletes, I recommend that they don’t get used to napping in bed, since they’re going to have|they will
