Hear plenty of performance podcasters, making it simple to believe that a nap is a powerful tool: rather than a quick fix following restless night, but a route to a better memory, better spirits and perhaps improved athletic performance. Elite footballers do it regularly – along with musicians, UFC champions and media moguls. Yet, when you haven’t got a dedicated nap-room or employment that allows regular snoozing, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a short sleep to justify the kerfuffle? Does there exist a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you really guarantee you will get up feeling better, rather than worse?
Understanding Your Drive to Snooze
“We can identify three key drivers for napping for many people,” says an expert circadian rhythm professor. “One is what we call compensatory napping, essentially what happens when you’ve had insufficient sleep the night before. Another is prophylactic napping, when you are preparing for insufficient sleep ahead, for instance if you’re working graveyard shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which simply boils down to wanting: you have a moment to nap in the daytime, and it's pleasant to do it.”
The initial step to consider, then, is consider your reason for napping. “Daytime sleep can be truly beneficial when night sleeping gets interrupted because of factors outside your control – for example, for a new parent, or recovering after being ill or heavy physical exertion,” states a sleep expert. “But if you take a nap because your nighttime sleep seems unreliable or poor, that is frequently a signal your need for sleep is not as strong as required. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into a contributing factor, rather than the answer. Employ naps for brief periods for short-term problems – the focus must always be a robust and regular sleep at night.”
The Ideal Nap Duration
This means that daytime sleep must not be long enough to disrupt your overnight rest, and ideally are not recommended after about 3pm (based on when you go to bed in the evening). What's a reasonable length? Recommendations vary. In one of the most-cited studies about napping, researchers at Nasa found that crew members experienced up to a 54% increase in attentiveness and a 34% boost in cognitive performance following a nap of 26 minutes (technically, this involved a six-minute long falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest setting an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – most people fall asleep in under ten minutes,” explains a sleep coach. “You'll find much advice around regarding the optimal amount for sleeping, but that tends to lead individuals to become more worried than anything – and the least helpful action you can do when attempting to fall asleep is to be anxious.”
If you’re going to nap for a longer period, avoid the 45-60 minute window that induces that sluggish feeling, that foggy state when you awaken. “Studies would say it’s better to opt for a longer nap of one to one and a half hours rather than a mid-length nap,” explains the expert. “Three-quarters of an hour is long enough to plunge you into slow-wave sleep and you’re more likely to feel disoriented upon awakening – whereas if you extend it a little longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you’re likely to be completing of a sleep cycle and are likely to wake up feeling more refreshed. But if you're dozing for 90 minutes, it may impact the quality of your sleep that night.”
Creating an Ideal Snooze Setting
As for specific techniques, advice differs. A few professionals recommend employing the same protocol you’d use to promote a good night’s sleep: a quiet room, a supportive surface and minimal light as is feasible. Alternatively, experts propose that one could merely snooze on a couch with ambient lighting happens to be around – to avoid sleep inertia and to “protect” your sleeping quarters as the environment you associate with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is something really tricky to command,” says a sleep coach. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and basically command yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some drive present to bring the sleep on initially. For me, it's possible to snooze in full light and awaken on my own without a timer, but what helps a lot of people is to wait for a moment when they are naturally slightly tired and just gently relax into it.”
It’s worth experimenting, and if options are scarce – such as, if attempting to squeeze in a quick nap while traveling or in a work pod – it's acceptable with bringing a few tools. “Coaching professional sportspeople, I suggest that they don’t get used to napping in bed, since they’re going to have|they will
