The Formula to a Flawless Nap: When, Location and Duration?
Tune into enough self-improvement experts, making it tempting to convince yourself that a nap is a secret weapon: more than a band-aid after poor sleep, but a path towards enhanced cognition, a brighter outlook and maybe improved athletic performance. Premier League soccer players do it regularly – and so are concert pianists, UFC champions & business leaders. However, if you haven’t got a dedicated nap-room or a job that encourages regular snoozing, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a short sleep to justify the kerfuffle? Can you find a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? Plus, is it possible to truly ensure you’ll wake up feeling improved, instead of groggy?
Understanding The Nap Motivation
“There are three key drivers for napping for many people,” notes a leading sleep science researcher. “The first is termed make-up sleep, essentially what you do following a lack of sleep the night before. The second is preparatory napping, which involves pre-empting a sleep deficit coming up, for example if you’re working overnight shifts. Finally, there's “hedonic napping”, which simply comes down to wanting: you have a moment to sleep in the daytime, and it feels nice to do it.”
The first thing to do, so, is consider your reason for napping. “Napping can be really helpful when night sleeping is disturbed for reasons outside your control – for instance, when you are a new parent, or if you are healing after being ill or intense exercise,” states a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you nap because your nighttime sleep feels fragile or unreliable, that is frequently a signal your sleep drive is not as strong as it should be. In those cases, napping can become part of the issue, rather than the answer. Use napping for brief periods for temporary issues – the main goal should still be a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”
The Optimal Nap Length
This means that napping must not be sufficiently lengthy to affect your overnight rest, and ideally are not recommended after about 3pm (based on the time you retire at night). What duration is wise? Advice differs. From the most referenced research regarding daytime sleep, space agency scientists discovered that astronauts showed improvements of over 50% in alertness plus a 34% rise in task performance post a 26-minute snooze (technically, this counted a six-minute long sleep onset time). “My advice is using an alarm for half an hour or less – the majority doze off quickly,” explains a sleep coach. “You'll find much recommendations concerning the optimal amount of time, but that tends to cause people to feel more anxious above all – and the worst thing you can do when trying to get to sleep is to stress over it.”
If you plan to nap for a longer period, bypass the period between 45 and 60 minutes that induces sleep inertia, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “Studies indicates it's more effective to take a lengthier snooze lasting 60-90 minutes than a medium-length one,” notes the expert. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to send you into a deep sleep stage and it is more probable to feel disoriented upon awakening – however, if you extend it a bit longer to 60 or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be on the end a full cycle and are likely to wake up feeling more rejuvenated. But if you nap for 90 minutes, it will affect how you sleep in the evening.”
Finding the Perfect Nap Environment
Regarding exact methodologies, advice differs. Some experts recommend using similar routines one would use to promote restful sleep: a peaceful area, a supportive surface and maximum darkness as you can manage. Some advise that it's fine to just doze on the sofa in the existing light is present – both to discourage post-nap grogginess and to maintain your bed as the space your mind associates with *real* sleep. “Sleep is quite challenging to command,” explains a sleep coach. “Lacking any sleepiness, it is more challenging to recline and basically command yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some sleep pressure there to bring the sleep on to begin with. I can usually snooze during the day and wake up naturally without an alarm, though, what aids a lot of people is to look for an instance that they’re naturally slightly tired and then simply relax into it.”
It’s worth experimenting, and when you have few options – for instance, when aiming to squeeze in 40 winks while traveling or in a work pod – it is perfectly fine to employ sleep aids. “Coaching elite athletes, I recommend that they don’t get used to napping in bed, because they’re going to have|they will
