Tune into a few performance podcasters, and you'll be easy to believe that napping is a secret weapon: rather than a band-aid after poor sleep, but a route towards improved recall, improved mood and possibly improved athletic performance. Professional athletes do it regularly – along with professional piano players, mixed martial artists and high-profile executives. Yet, when you lack a special sleep space or a career that encourages regular snoozing, can there *honestly* sufficient advantages to a quick nap to merit the effort? Can you find a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you honestly promise you’ll wake up feeling improved, rather than worse?
Identifying The Nap Motivation
“We can identify three primary motivations for napping in the adult population,” notes a leading circadian rhythm specialist. “Firstly, there's what we call make-up sleep, that is the action you take when you’ve had poor sleep overnight. The second is pre-emptive sleep, when you are pre-empting sleep loss coming up, for example if you’re working overnight shifts. The third reason is “hedonic napping”, which simply comes down to wanting: there is a moment to sleep in the daytime, and it feels nice to nap.”
The first thing to do, so, is to think about your nap motivation. “Naps can be truly beneficial when nighttime sleep is being disrupted because of factors you cannot change – for example, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or you’re recovering from illness or strenuous activity,” states a sleep specialist. “However, if you’re napping because your nighttime sleep is unstable or broken, that can be a signal your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it should be. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, instead of the fix. Employ naps as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the focus must always be a solid and consistent sleep at night.”
The Optimal Snooze Time
This implies that daytime sleep must not be sufficiently lengthy to interfere with your overnight rest, and ideally shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on what time you go to bed in the evening). How long is sensible? Recommendations vary. From the most-cited studies regarding daytime sleep, experts noted that space travelers experienced up to a 54% increase in attentiveness and a 34% increase in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (in detail, this counted a six-minute nodding-off period). “I recommend setting an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – most people fall asleep in under ten minutes,” notes a sleep coach. “There is plenty of advice around regarding the ideal number of time, yet that often make people feel more worried above all – and the worst thing one can do when attempting to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, steer clear of the period between 45 and 60 minutes that encourages sleep grogginess, that foggy state when you wake. “The science indicates it is preferable to have a longer nap lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” says the professor. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to put you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel sluggish upon awakening – while if you nap for a bit longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you will probably to be completing of a sleep cycle and are likely to wake up feeling more rejuvenated. But if you nap for an hour and a half, it will affect the quality of your sleep later that night.”
Establishing the Right Snooze Setting
When it comes to specific techniques, suggestions are diverse. Certain specialists recommend employing the same protocol you use to encourage restful sleep: a peaceful area, a comfortable bed and maximum darkness as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that you should just doze on the sofa in the existing light is available – to avoid post-nap grogginess and to maintain your sleeping quarters as the place you associate with proper sleep. “Sleep is quite challenging to command,” says a sleep coach. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it is tougher to get comfortable and essentially instruct yourself to go to sleep. There must be some sleep pressure present to start the process in the first place. I can usually snooze in broad daylight and awaken on my own without an alarm, however, what assists most folks is to wait for a time when they are 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 during a commute or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong with bringing a few tools. “Coaching professional sportspeople, I recommend that they avoid becoming accustomed to napping in bed, as they’re going to have|they will
