Listen to enough performance podcasters, and you'll be simple to think that a nap is a superpower: more than a sticking plaster following restless night, but a route to enhanced cognition, better spirits and possibly quicker running times. Premier League footballers do it regularly – as do musicians, UFC champions & high-profile executives. But if you haven’t got a dedicated nap-room or a job that permits frequent naps, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a short sleep to merit the kerfuffle? Can you find a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling better, rather than worse?
Identifying The Nap Motivation
“Experts note three key drivers for napping for many people,” notes an expert sleep and circadian science researcher. “The first is termed make-up sleep, that is what you do after experiencing insufficient sleep the previous night. The second is pre-emptive sleep, where you are preparing for a sleep deficit in the future, for example when working overnight shifts. Finally, there's “hedonic napping”, which basically comes down to wanting: you have an opportunity to nap during the day, and it feels nice to indulge.”
The first thing to undertake, therefore, is consider your reason for napping. “Naps can be truly beneficial when night sleeping is disturbed due to causes beyond your control – for example, when you are caring for an infant, or if you are healing from sickness or heavy physical exertion,” explains a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you’re napping since your night sleep is unstable or broken, that can be a signal your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as it needs to be. In those cases, daytime sleep can turn into a contributing factor, instead of the fix. Use napping as a short-term solution for short-term problems – the focus must always be a robust and regular night’s sleep.”
The Optimal Snooze Time
Therefore that naps shouldn’t be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your sleep at night, and ideally shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (depending on when you go to bed overnight). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. Among a prominent study on the subject, experts found that crew members showed improvements of over 50% in attentiveness and a 34% boost in task performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this included an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest setting a timer for 20 to 30 minutes – most people fall asleep quickly,” says a specialist. “You'll find much guidance out there concerning the ideal number of time, but that tends to cause people to feel more worried than anything else – and the least helpful action you can do when attempting to fall asleep is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to nap for a longer period, bypass the 45 to 60 minute range that promotes that sluggish feeling, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “The science suggests it's more effective to have a lengthier snooze lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” explains the expert. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to plunge you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel sluggish when you wake up – however, if you take it slightly longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to finish of a sleep cycle and will probably wake up feeling more rejuvenated. But if you’re sleeping for a long period, it will affect your sleep in the evening.”
Creating the Right Snooze Setting
Regarding exact methodologies, recommendations vary. Certain specialists propose adopting comparable habits you use to promote restful sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and as much darkness as possible. Others suggest that you should simply nap on a couch in whatever light is available – to avoid that groggy feeling and to preserve your bed as the place your brain links with nighttime rest. “Napping is notoriously difficult to force,” notes an expert. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and basically command yourself to go to sleep. You need some sleep pressure there to initiate sleep initially. For me, it's possible to snooze in full light and naturally wake up without a timer, though, what aids many individuals is to wait for a time where they feel naturally slightly tired and calmly allow sleep to come.”
Experimentation is key, and if your choices are limited – for example, when aiming to grab 40 winks on a train or in a soundproof office pod – it's acceptable to employ sleep aids. “In my work with footballers, I advise that they avoid becoming accustomed to napping in bed, as they’re going to have|they will
