Tune into enough performance experts, and it’s tempting to think that dozing is a superpower: rather than a sticking plaster following a bad night’s sleep, but a path to improved recall, better spirits and maybe quicker running times. Premier League footballers are all at it – as do professional piano players, mixed martial artists & business leaders. But if you lack a room for napping or a career that permits frequent naps, can there *honestly* enough benefits to a quick nap to merit the effort? Can you find a surefire technique to nod off promptly? Plus, is it possible to honestly promise you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, rather than worse?
Identifying Your Nap Motivation
“There are three key drivers for napping among most adults,” notes an expert sleep and circadian science professor. “Firstly, there's known as compensatory napping, that is the action you take following a lack of sleep overnight. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, where you are pre-empting a sleep deficit in the future, such as if you’re working graveyard shifts. Finally, there's “hedonic napping”, which essentially is about desire: you get a chance to nap in the afternoon, and it feels nice to nap.”
The first thing to undertake, then, is to think about why you want to nap. “Naps can be genuinely useful when overnight rest gets interrupted because of factors outside your control – such as, for a new parent, or if you are healing from sickness or strenuous activity,” states a sleep expert. “But if you’re napping as your nighttime sleep seems unreliable or unreliable, that is frequently a sign your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it should be. In such situations, naps can become a contributing factor, not the solution. Use napping as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the priority must always be a robust and regular overnight rest.”
The Ideal Nap Length
Therefore that daytime sleep ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to affect your overnight rest, and best should not occur in the late afternoon (depending on when you sleep overnight). What duration is wise? Advice differs. In one of the most-cited studies on the subject, researchers at Nasa discovered that crew members experienced improvements of over 50% in vigilance plus a 34% rise in cognitive performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this included a six-minute long nodding-off period). “I recommend using an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – the majority doze off quickly,” explains a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of guidance out there concerning the ideal number of minutes, but that tends to lead individuals to become more worried than anything else – and the worst thing you can do when trying to fall asleep is to be anxious.”
If you plan to take an extended nap, avoid the 45-60 minute window that encourages that sluggish feeling, that disoriented sensation when you wake. “The science indicates it's more effective to have a longer nap of one to one and a half hours rather than a mid-length nap,” explains the professor. “Three-quarters of an hour is sufficient to send you into a deep sleep stage making it more likely to feel disoriented upon awakening – while if you take it a bit longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to be on the end a natural sleep cycle and will probably awaken feeling more refreshed. Though if you nap for an hour and a half, it may impact the quality of your sleep in the evening.”
Finding the Perfect Snooze Setting
As for precise methods, suggestions are diverse. Certain specialists suggest employing comparable habits you use to foster restful sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and maximum darkness as is feasible. Some advise that one could just doze on the sofa in the existing light is present – both to discourage sleep inertia and to maintain your bedroom as the place your brain links with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to command,” notes a sleep coach. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and practically tell yourself to nod off. There must be a natural inclination there to bring the sleep on initially. Personally, I can often take a nap in broad daylight and wake up naturally without an alarm, but what helps many individuals is to anticipate a moment where they feel naturally feeling a bit drowsy and calmly ease into sleep.”
It’s worth experimenting, and when options are scarce – for example, if you’re trying to grab a quick nap while traveling or in a work pod – it is perfectly fine to use some accessories. “Coaching professional sportspeople, I suggest that they avoid becoming accustomed to sleeping in their bed, since they’re going to have|they will
