Listen to plenty of performance experts, and you'll be tempting to believe that a nap is a secret weapon: more than a band-aid after a bad night’s sleep, but a shortcut to enhanced cognition, improved mood and maybe improved athletic performance. Elite athletes swear by it – as do professional piano players, mixed martial artists and media moguls. Yet, when you haven’t got a special sleep space or employment that allows frequent naps, are there *really* worthwhile perks to a quick nap for it to be worth the effort? Can you find a reliable way to fall asleep fast? And can you honestly promise you will get up feeling better, rather than worse?
Exploring The Nap Motivation
“Experts note three key drivers for daytime sleep among most adults,” says a professor of sleep science professor. “Firstly, there's known as recovery napping, essentially what happens when you’ve had poor sleep overnight. Another is prophylactic napping, which involves pre-empting a sleep deficit in the future, such as when working overnight shifts. The third reason is “hedonic napping”, which essentially boils down to wanting: there is a moment to doze in the afternoon, and it's enjoyable to do it.”
The initial step to consider, then, is to think about your reason for napping. “Napping can be genuinely useful when nighttime sleep gets interrupted for reasons you cannot change – for instance, when you are a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing from illness or intense exercise,” states a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you’re napping as your nighttime sleep seems unreliable or poor, that is frequently a sign your need for sleep is not at the level required. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, rather than the answer. Employ naps as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the focus must always be a strong and predictable sleep at night.”
The Ideal Nap Length
This means that daytime sleep must not be long enough to affect your sleep at night, and best should not occur post-3 p.m. (based on the time you go to bed at night). How long is sensible? Advice differs. Among the most referenced research regarding daytime sleep, experts found that crew members experienced a boost of up to 54% in attentiveness and a 34% boost in performance post a 26-minute snooze (technically, this involved an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “I recommend using an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – most people fall asleep within 10 minutes,” says a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of recommendations about the ideal number for sleeping, yet that often make people feel more stressed than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing you can do when trying to nod off is worry about it.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, avoid the period between 45 and 60 minutes that induces sleep inertia, that disoriented sensation when you wake. “The science would say it's more effective to opt for an extended nap of 60 to 90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” says the sleep scientist. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to send you into a deep sleep stage making it more likely to feel sluggish when you get up – whereas if you take it a little longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to be completing a full cycle and will probably awaken feeling more alert. However, if you're dozing for a long period, it will affect how you sleep later that night.”
Establishing the Right Snooze Setting
Regarding specific techniques, recommendations vary. Some experts recommend using similar routines you use to encourage a good night’s sleep: a silent space, a supportive surface and maximum darkness as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that one could merely snooze on a couch with ambient lighting is present – both to discourage that groggy feeling and to “protect” your bed as the place your mind associates with *real* sleep. “Falling asleep is something really tricky to will,” notes a specialist. “Lacking any drowsiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and basically instruct yourself to go to sleep. You need a natural inclination available to initiate sleep to begin with. For me, it's possible to take a nap in full light and awaken on my own without an alarm, though, what aids most folks is to anticipate a moment when they are naturally slightly tired and just gently ease into sleep.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and when your choices are limited – such as, if you’re trying to fit in a quick nap on a train or at the office – there’s nothing wrong to employ a few tools. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I recommend that they not rely on napping in bed, since they’re going to have|they will
