Hear plenty of performance gurus, and you'll be easy to believe that a nap is a secret weapon: not just a sticking plaster after a bad night’s sleep, but a route to enhanced cognition, a brighter outlook and perhaps improved athletic performance. Premier League soccer players do it regularly – along with concert pianists, mixed martial artists and business leaders. However, if you don't have a special sleep space or a career that allows frequent naps, can there *honestly* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye to justify the kerfuffle? Is there a dependable method to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you honestly promise you will arise feeling improved, not worse?
Exploring Your Drive to Snooze
“Experts note three primary motivations for napping among most adults,” notes an expert sleep science specialist. “The first is what we call recovery napping, essentially what happens after experiencing insufficient sleep the night before. The second is pre-emptive sleep, when you are pre-empting a sleep deficit in the future, for example during overnight shifts. The third reason is “appetitive drive”, which simply is about the wish: you get a moment to nap during the day, and it's enjoyable to nap.”
The primary task to do, so, is to think about your reason for napping. “Napping can be really helpful when overnight rest is disturbed because of factors you cannot change – for example, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing from sickness or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep specialist. “Yet when you take a nap because your sleep at night feels fragile or unreliable, that is frequently a signal your sleep drive is not where it needs to be. In such situations, napping can become part of the problem, instead of the fix. Use napping as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the priority should still be a solid and consistent night’s sleep.”
The Perfect Nap Duration
This means that napping must not be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your sleep at night, and ideally shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (depending on when you go to bed in the evening). What duration is wise? Advice differs. Among the most-cited studies on the subject, experts noted that crew members showed improvements of over 50% in attentiveness and a 34% increase in cognitive performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this counted an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting an alarm for 20-30 minutes – most people doze off in under ten minutes,” says a sleep coach. “You'll find much advice around concerning the ideal number of time, but that tends to cause people to feel more worried than anything – and the least helpful action one can do when trying to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
If you plan to take an extended nap, bypass the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep inertia, that disoriented sensation upon waking. “The science suggests it's more effective to take an extended nap of one to one and a half hours rather than a mid-length nap,” notes the sleep scientist. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to plunge you into a deep sleep stage and it is more probable to feel groggy when you wake up – however, if you extend it slightly longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be completing of a sleep cycle and should get up feeling more alert. But if you nap for an hour and a half, it can influence your sleep that night.”
Creating the Perfect Nap Environment
As for precise methods, advice differs. Some experts propose employing similar routines you’d use to encourage a good night’s sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and as much darkness as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that one could simply nap in a chair in whatever light is present – both to discourage post-nap grogginess and to maintain your sleeping quarters as the space your mind associates with nighttime rest. “Falling asleep is something really tricky to will,” notes a sleep coach. “Without any sleepiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and practically tell yourself to nod off. There must be some drive there to start the process in the first place. Personally, I can often take a nap in full light and awaken on my own alarm-free, however, what assists many individuals is to wait for an instance where they feel naturally feeling a bit drowsy and then simply allow sleep to come.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if options are scarce – such as, when aiming to squeeze in a quick nap while traveling or in a work pod – it is perfectly fine to employ some accessories. “In my work with elite athletes, I suggest that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
