Listen to enough productivity podcasters, and it’s easy to believe that dozing is a superpower: more than a band-aid following poor sleep, but a route towards a better memory, a brighter outlook and perhaps improved athletic performance. Professional soccer players are all at it – as do professional piano players, mixed martial artists and high-profile executives. However, if you haven’t got a dedicated nap-room or employment that allows daytime sleep, is it *truly* worthwhile perks to a burst of shut-eye to justify the effort? Can you find a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling improved, rather than worse?
Identifying The Reasons for Napping
“There are three key drivers for taking a nap for many people,” says a professor of circadian rhythm specialist. “Firstly, there's what we call make-up sleep, essentially what happens when you’ve had a lack of sleep the night before. The second is pre-emptive sleep, where you are pre-empting sleep loss in the future, for example if you’re working overnight shifts. The third is called “hedonic napping”, which simply is about wanting: you have a moment to nap during the day, and it's pleasant to nap.”
The first thing to do, therefore, is to examine why you want to nap. “Naps can be genuinely useful when overnight rest is disturbed due to causes outside your control – such as, if you’re caring for an infant, or recovering from illness or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you nap because your night sleep feels fragile or poor, that can be an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not where it needs to be. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, not the solution. Utilize daytime sleep for brief periods for temporary issues – the priority should still be a robust and regular night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
This implies that daytime sleep must not be long enough to disrupt your nighttime sleep, and ideally are not recommended in the late afternoon (contingent on what time you retire in the evening). What duration is wise? Advice differs. From the most referenced research regarding daytime sleep, researchers at Nasa discovered that space travelers experienced a boost of up to 54% in vigilance and a 34% increase in performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this included an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest setting a timer for 20-30 minutes – many individuals are asleep within 10 minutes,” notes a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of advice around concerning the optimal amount for sleeping, yet that often cause people to feel more anxious than anything else – and the least helpful action you can do when trying to fall asleep is to be anxious.”
If you’re going to take an extended nap, steer clear of the 45 to 60 minute range that encourages that sluggish feeling, that foggy state upon waking. “Research would say it is preferable to have a longer nap of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” explains the expert. “Forty-five minutes is enough time to put you into a deep sleep stage making it more likely to feel sluggish when you get up – while if you take it a bit longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you will probably to finish a natural sleep cycle and will probably wake up feeling more refreshed. Though if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it can influence how you sleep that night.”
Establishing the Right Nap Environment
As for specific techniques, recommendations vary. Some experts propose using comparable habits you’d use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and maximum darkness as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that it's fine to simply nap on a couch in whatever light happens to be around – both to discourage sleep inertia and to “protect” your bedroom as the environment your mind associates with nighttime rest. “Napping is notoriously difficult to will,” says a specialist. “Lacking any drowsiness, it is more challenging to recline and basically tell yourself to fall asleep. There’s got to be some drive available to bring the sleep on in the first place. For me, it's possible to take a nap in broad daylight and awaken on my own without an alarm, but what helps most folks is to wait for a moment that they’re naturally slightly tired and then simply relax into it.”
Experimentation is key, and if your choices are limited – for example, if attempting to squeeze in a quick nap while traveling or in a soundproof office pod – it is perfectly fine to employ some accessories. “Coaching footballers, I recommend that they not rely on napping in bed, since they’re going to have|they will
