Tune into a few performance podcasters, making it simple to believe that dozing is a powerful tool: more than a sticking plaster following restless night, but a path towards enhanced cognition, better spirits and maybe a faster 5k run time. Premier League footballers do it regularly – as do musicians, mixed martial artists and media moguls. However, if you haven’t got a room for napping or a career that permits frequent naps, is it *truly* enough benefits to a quick nap to merit the hassle? Does there exist a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? Plus, is it possible to really guarantee you will arise feeling improved, not worse?
Identifying Your Nap Motivation
“There are three main reasons for daytime sleep in the adult population,” notes an expert circadian rhythm specialist. “The first is termed make-up sleep, which is the action you take after experiencing a lack of sleep the previous night. Secondly, there's preparatory napping, which involves preparing for insufficient sleep coming up, such as when working graveyard shifts. Finally, there's “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially boils down to desire: you have an opportunity to nap during the day, and it's enjoyable to nap.”
The primary task to do, therefore, is to examine your nap motivation. “Naps can be really helpful when nighttime sleep is disturbed due to causes you cannot change – for example, if you’re a new parent, or recovering from illness or heavy physical exertion,” explains a sleep specialist. “However, if you nap because your nighttime sleep seems unreliable or broken, that is frequently a sign your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as it should be. Under those circumstances, napping can become part of the problem, rather than the answer. Employ naps for brief periods for short-term problems – the main goal must always be a solid and consistent overnight rest.”
The Ideal Nap Duration
This implies that daytime sleep shouldn’t be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your nighttime sleep, and ideally shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on the time you sleep overnight). What's a reasonable length? Guidelines are mixed. Among the most referenced research on the subject, space agency scientists discovered that crew members showed improvements of over 50% in attentiveness and a 34% increase in performance following a nap of 26 minutes (to be precise, this counted a six-minute long nodding-off period). “I recommend setting a timer for half an hour or less – many individuals fall asleep within 10 minutes,” notes a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of advice around about the perfect length of minutes, however, that can lead individuals to become more worried than anything else – and the least helpful action you can do when trying to fall asleep is worry about it.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, steer clear of the 45-60 minute window that encourages that sluggish feeling, that foggy state upon waking. “Studies would say it is preferable to opt for a longer nap of 60 to 90 minutes than a medium-length one,” notes the sleep scientist. “45 minutes is long enough to send you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel disoriented upon awakening – however, if you take it a little longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you’re likely to be completing a natural sleep cycle and are likely to get up feeling more alert. But if you’re sleeping for a long period, it may impact the quality of your sleep in the evening.”
Creating the Right Snooze Setting
Regarding precise methods, advice differs. Certain specialists propose employing the same protocol one would use to encourage quality nighttime sleep: a silent space, a cozy bed and as much darkness as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that it's fine to simply nap on a couch with ambient lighting happens to be around – both to discourage post-nap grogginess and to maintain your sleeping quarters as the place your brain links with proper sleep. “Sleep is quite challenging to command,” explains a specialist. “Lacking any drowsiness, it is more challenging to lie down and basically instruct yourself to fall asleep. There must be some sleep pressure present to start the process in the first place. For me, it's possible to take a nap in broad daylight and naturally wake up without an alarm, though, what aids most folks is to anticipate a moment that they’re naturally feeling a bit drowsy and just gently ease into sleep.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if you have few options – for instance, when aiming to fit in some shut-eye on a train or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong to employ a few tools. “Coaching footballers, I recommend that they avoid becoming accustomed to sleeping in their bed, since they’re going to have|they will