Hear enough productivity gurus, and you'll be easy to convince yourself that dozing is a powerful tool: not just a quick fix after restless night, but a shortcut towards enhanced cognition, a brighter outlook and perhaps a faster 5k run time. Professional athletes are all at it – and so are musicians, mixed martial artists & media moguls. But if you lack a special sleep space or a career that encourages frequent naps, is it *truly* enough benefits to a quick nap to merit the effort? Can you find a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you honestly promise you will get up feeling improved, rather than worse?
Exploring The Drive to Snooze
“There are three main reasons for taking a nap among most adults,” notes an expert circadian rhythm professor. “The first is what we call compensatory napping, that is the action you take when you’ve had poor sleep the night before. Another is preparatory napping, when you are preparing for sleep loss coming up, for instance if you’re working on night shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially boils down to the wish: you have a chance to sleep during the day, and it's enjoyable to indulge.”
The first thing to undertake, therefore, is consider your nap motivation. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when nighttime sleep is disturbed due to causes outside your control – such as, if you’re a new parent, or recovering after being ill or intense exercise,” explains a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you’re napping because your night sleep seems unreliable or unreliable, that can be an indicator your need for sleep is not at the level it should be. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, instead of the fix. Utilize daytime sleep for brief periods to address immediate needs – the main goal should still be a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Nap Length
Therefore that naps must not be too extended to affect your overnight rest, and best shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on when you sleep at night). How long is sensible? Guidelines are mixed. Among the most-cited studies on the subject, experts discovered that crew members showed up to a 54% increase in vigilance plus a 34% rise in cognitive performance following a nap of 26 minutes (technically, this included a six-minute long nodding-off period). “My advice is setting a timer for 20-30 minutes – many individuals doze off quickly,” notes a sleep coach. “You'll find much guidance out there regarding the ideal number of minutes, but that tends to make people feel more anxious than anything – and the least helpful action one can do while aiming to fall asleep is worry about it.”
Should you decide to nap for a longer period, avoid the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep grogginess, that foggy state when you wake. “The science suggests it is preferable to take a lengthier snooze of one to one and a half hours rather than a mid-length nap,” says the expert. “Three-quarters of an hour is long enough to put you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel disoriented upon awakening – while if you nap for a bit longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to be completing a natural sleep cycle and should awaken feeling more alert. But if you're dozing for a long period, it will affect your sleep that night.”
Creating the Right Sleep Space
As for specific techniques, recommendations vary. Certain specialists propose adopting the same protocol you use to encourage a good night’s sleep: a quiet room, a supportive surface and minimal light as you can manage. Some advise that you should simply nap in a chair in the existing light happens to be around – both to discourage sleep inertia and to maintain your sleeping quarters as the environment your mind associates with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is quite challenging to command,” explains a specialist. “If you don’t have the urge to sleep, it is more challenging to recline and basically instruct yourself to fall asleep. There must be some sleep pressure available to bring the sleep on initially. I can usually nap in full light and naturally wake up alarm-free, but what helps many individuals is to anticipate a time that they’re naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and if your choices are limited – for example, if you’re trying to grab some shut-eye on a train or in a soundproof office pod – it's acceptable to employ a few tools. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I advise that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, because they’re going to have|they will
