Hear plenty of performance podcasters, and it’s tempting to believe that napping is a superpower: more than a band-aid after a bad night’s sleep, but a path towards a better memory, better spirits and possibly a faster 5k run time. Premier League athletes swear by it – and so are musicians, fighters and high-profile executives. Yet, when you lack a room for napping or a job that permits daytime sleep, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye to justify the effort? Is there a reliable way to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you truly ensure you will arise feeling improved, rather than worse?
Identifying The Drive to Snooze
“Experts note three key drivers for daytime sleep for many people,” says a professor of sleep science researcher. “The first is known as recovery napping, essentially what happens when you’ve had poor sleep overnight. Another is pre-emptive sleep, where you are pre-empting insufficient sleep coming up, for instance if you’re working overnight shifts. Finally, there's “appetitive drive”, which basically is about wanting: you have an opportunity to nap in the afternoon, and it feels nice to do it.”
The primary task to consider, so, is to think about your nap motivation. “Naps can be truly beneficial when nighttime sleep is disturbed for reasons you cannot change – such as, when you are a new parent, or if you are healing after being ill or intense exercise,” explains a sleep expert. “Yet when you nap since your night sleep feels fragile or unreliable, that is frequently a signal your sleep drive is not as strong as it should be. Under those circumstances, napping can become a contributing factor, not the solution. Employ naps as a short-term solution for short-term problems – the priority should still be a strong and predictable sleep at night.”
The Optimal Nap Length
This means that naps ought not to be long enough to disrupt your sleep at night, and preferably shouldn’t take place in the late afternoon (based on when you go to bed overnight). What duration is wise? Advice differs. From a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, experts discovered that crew members experienced a boost of up to 54% in attentiveness and a 34% boost in task performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this involved a six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is using an alarm for 20-30 minutes – many individuals are asleep in under ten minutes,” explains a specialist. “There is plenty of advice around about the ideal number of time, but that tends to cause people to feel more stressed above all – and the most counterproductive thing one can do when trying to fall asleep is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, avoid the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling when you wake. “Studies indicates it is preferable to have a lengthier snooze of 60 to 90 minutes compared to a medium-length nap,” says the professor. “45 minutes is long enough to plunge you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel disoriented upon awakening – however, if you extend it a bit longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you’re likely to finish a natural sleep cycle and are likely to wake up feeling more rejuvenated. But if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it can influence how you sleep later that night.”
Establishing the Right Nap Environment
As for exact methodologies, advice differs. Certain specialists propose employing similar routines one would use to promote restful sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and as much darkness as you can manage. Alternatively, experts propose that it's fine to simply nap on a couch with ambient lighting is present – to prevent sleep inertia and to maintain your bedroom as the place your brain links with *real* sleep. “Sleep is something really tricky to command,” notes a specialist. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it is more challenging to recline and practically instruct yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some sleep pressure available to initiate sleep initially. For me, it's possible to snooze in broad daylight and naturally wake up without an alarm, but what helps a lot of people is to anticipate an instance when they are naturally somewhat sleepy and calmly ease into sleep.”
It’s worth experimenting, and if options are scarce – for instance, when aiming to grab a quick nap during a commute or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong with bringing sleep aids. “In my work with professional sportspeople, I advise that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, because they’re going to have|they will
