Tune into a few self-improvement gurus, making it easy to convince yourself that dozing is a secret weapon: more than a sticking plaster following a bad night’s sleep, but a path towards improved recall, a brighter outlook and maybe improved athletic performance. Elite soccer players do it regularly – as do musicians, UFC champions and media moguls. However, if you lack a room for napping or employment that allows regular snoozing, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a short sleep to justify the kerfuffle? Is there a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Plus, is it possible to honestly promise you will get up feeling improved, not worse?
Identifying Your Drive to Snooze
“Experts note three primary motivations for taking a nap in the adult population,” explains an expert sleep science specialist. “Firstly, there's what we call compensatory napping, which is what happens when you’ve had poor sleep overnight. The second is prophylactic napping, when you are anticipating sleep loss coming up, for example if you’re working graveyard shifts. Finally, there's “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially boils down to the wish: you get a moment to doze in the daytime, and it's enjoyable to nap.”
The initial step to consider, so, is to think about your reason for napping. “Naps can be genuinely useful when nighttime sleep gets interrupted because of factors you cannot change – for example, when you are a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing from illness or strenuous activity,” says a sleep physiologist. “However, if you take a nap since your sleep at night seems unreliable or unreliable, that can be a sign your need for sleep is not as strong as it needs to be. In those cases, naps can become part of the issue, instead of the fix. Use napping for brief periods to address immediate needs – the priority ought to remain a robust and regular night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Nap Duration
This implies that naps shouldn’t be long enough to interfere with your sleep at night, and ideally are not recommended post-3 p.m. (based on the time you go to bed overnight). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. In one of a prominent study about napping, experts noted that space travelers showed improvements of over 50% in vigilance and a 34% increase in performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this involved a six-minute nodding-off period). “I recommend using an alarm for 20-30 minutes – the majority fall asleep quickly,” notes a specialist. “You'll find much guidance out there concerning the optimal amount for sleeping, but that tends to cause people to feel more stressed than anything else – and the least helpful action you can possibly do when trying to fall asleep is worry about it.”
Should you decide to nap for a longer period, avoid the period between 45 and 60 minutes that encourages that sluggish feeling, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “Research suggests it's more effective to opt for an extended nap of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” explains the professor. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to plunge you into a deep sleep stage and you’re more likely to feel disoriented upon awakening – however, if you nap for slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you’re likely to finish a full cycle and should get up feeling more rejuvenated. However, if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it can influence the quality of your sleep that night.”
Establishing the Right Sleep Space
When it comes to specific techniques, recommendations vary. A few professionals recommend adopting comparable habits you use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a supportive surface and minimal light as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that one could just doze on a couch with ambient lighting is present – to prevent sleep inertia and to “protect” your sleeping quarters as the environment you associate with nighttime rest. “Sleep is something really tricky to will,” says a specialist. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and practically instruct yourself to fall asleep. There’s got to be some drive there to initiate sleep initially. Personally, I can often snooze in full light and wake up naturally without a timer, though, what aids a lot of people is to wait for an instance when they are naturally slightly tired and just gently ease into sleep.”
It’s worth experimenting, and should you have few options – for example, when aiming to grab a quick nap during a commute or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong to use some accessories. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I advise that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, because they’re going to have|they will
