Hear a few self-improvement gurus, and you'll be easy to believe that dozing is a powerful tool: not just a sticking plaster following a bad night’s sleep, but a path to improved recall, a brighter outlook and perhaps a faster 5k run time. Professional athletes swear by it – as do professional piano players, mixed martial artists & media moguls. However, if you lack a special sleep space or a job that allows frequent naps, can there *honestly* worthwhile perks to a burst of shut-eye for it to be worth the effort? Is there a dependable method to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you honestly promise you will arise feeling better, rather than worse?
Identifying Your Reasons for Napping
“Experts note three key drivers for napping in the adult population,” explains an expert sleep science researcher. “One is termed compensatory napping, which is the action you take after experiencing a lack of sleep the previous night. Secondly, there's prophylactic napping, which involves preparing for sleep loss coming up, for instance when working graveyard shifts. The third is called “hedonic napping”, which essentially comes down to wanting: you get a moment to doze during the day, and it's enjoyable to nap.”
The initial step to do, so, is consider why you want to nap. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when overnight rest gets interrupted due to causes outside your control – for instance, when you are a new parent, or recovering from illness or intense exercise,” states a sleep specialist. “However, if you’re napping as your sleep at night is unstable or broken, that can be a sign your sleep drive is not as strong as it should be. Under those circumstances, naps can become part of the problem, rather than the answer. Use napping as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the main goal must always be a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”
The Optimal Nap Length
This implies that napping ought not to be long enough to affect your sleep at night, and preferably are not recommended post-3 p.m. (based on what time you sleep in the evening). What duration is wise? Recommendations vary. Among the most-cited studies on the subject, researchers at Nasa discovered that astronauts experienced up to a 54% increase in alertness and a 34% boost in performance post a 26-minute snooze (technically, this involved a six-minute sleep onset time). “I recommend using an alarm for half an hour or less – most people doze off quickly,” notes a specialist. “There’s a lot of guidance out there regarding the perfect length of minutes, however, that can make people feel more anxious than anything else – and the worst thing you can possibly do when attempting to get to sleep is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to nap for a longer period, steer clear of the 45 to 60 minute range that encourages that sluggish feeling, that spaced-out feeling when you awaken. “Research suggests it is preferable to have a lengthier snooze of 60 to 90 minutes than a medium-length one,” says the expert. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to put you into a deep sleep stage and it is more probable to feel groggy when you wake up – whereas if you extend it a bit longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to be on the end a full cycle and are likely to awaken feeling more rejuvenated. Though if you nap for an hour and a half, it will affect how you sleep in the evening.”
Creating the Right Snooze Setting
Regarding specific techniques, suggestions are diverse. Some experts recommend employing comparable habits you’d use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and minimal light as is feasible. Alternatively, experts propose that you should merely snooze on a couch in the existing light is present – to prevent sleep inertia and to “protect” your bed as the environment your brain links with proper sleep. “Napping is quite challenging to will,” says a specialist. “Without the urge to sleep, it is tougher to lie down and practically instruct yourself to fall asleep. You need some sleep pressure there to initiate sleep in the first place. Personally, I can often snooze in broad daylight and awaken on my own without an alarm, but what helps many individuals is to look for a moment that they’re naturally slightly tired and just gently ease into sleep.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and should options are scarce – such as, if attempting to grab some shut-eye on a train or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong to use sleep aids. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I advise that they not rely on sleeping in their bed, as they’re going to have|they will
