The Formula to a Flawless Nap: Timing, Where and for How Long?
Tune into a few self-improvement experts, making it simple to convince yourself that a nap is a secret weapon: rather than a band-aid following restless night, but a path to enhanced cognition, improved mood and maybe quicker running times. Premier League footballers do it regularly – along with musicians, UFC champions and high-profile executives. But if you don't have a room for napping or a career that allows frequent naps, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye for it to be worth the kerfuffle? Does there exist a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling better, instead of groggy?
Identifying Your Nap Motivation
“We can identify three key drivers for taking a nap in the adult population,” notes a professor of sleep and circadian science researcher. “Firstly, there's termed make-up sleep, essentially what happens after experiencing a lack of sleep overnight. Another is preparatory napping, which involves preparing for sleep loss coming up, such as during on night shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially is about wanting: there is an opportunity to nap in the daytime, and it's enjoyable to do it.”
The first thing to do, therefore, is to examine your reason for napping. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when nighttime sleep is disturbed due to causes outside your control – for example, when you are caring for an infant, or if you are healing after being ill or heavy physical exertion,” states a sleep specialist. “However, if you take a nap as your night sleep feels fragile or poor, that can be a sign your need for sleep is not at the level it needs to be. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, not the solution. Use napping as a short-term solution for temporary issues – the focus ought to remain a solid and consistent night’s sleep.”
The Perfect Nap Duration
Therefore that napping must not be too extended to interfere with your overnight rest, and ideally should not occur post-3 p.m. (depending on the time you go to bed at night). What's a reasonable length? Advice differs. Among the most-cited studies about napping, researchers at Nasa noted that crew members experienced improvements of over 50% in vigilance plus a 34% rise in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (to be precise, this included a six-minute long falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting a timer for 20-30 minutes – many individuals doze off quickly,” explains a specialist. “There’s a lot of guidance out there concerning the ideal number of minutes, however, that can lead individuals to become more anxious above all – and the least helpful action you can possibly do when trying to nod off is to stress over it.”
If you plan to take an extended nap, bypass the 45 to 60 minute range that encourages sleep grogginess, that foggy state when you wake. “Research would say it is preferable to opt for an extended nap of 60 to 90 minutes compared to a medium-length nap,” notes the expert. “45 minutes is sufficient to put you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel disoriented when you get up – whereas if you extend it slightly longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to finish a natural sleep cycle and are likely to get up feeling more refreshed. But if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it can influence the quality of your sleep later that night.”
Creating an Ideal Snooze Setting
As for specific techniques, advice differs. Certain specialists recommend employing the same protocol you’d use to encourage a good night’s sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and minimal light as you can manage. Alternatively, experts propose that you should just doze in a chair in whatever light is present – to avoid post-nap grogginess and to “protect” your bedroom as the place your mind associates with nighttime rest. “Napping is quite challenging to force,” explains an expert. “Without any drowsiness, it becomes harder to lie down and basically command yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some sleep pressure available to initiate sleep in the first place. For me, it's possible to snooze in broad daylight and naturally wake up without a timer, though, what aids a lot of people is to look for a moment that they’re naturally feeling a bit drowsy and calmly ease into sleep.”
It’s worth experimenting, and when you have few options – for example, when aiming to grab some shut-eye while traveling or in a soundproof office pod – it's acceptable with bringing a few tools. “In my work with footballers, I suggest that they avoid becoming accustomed to sleeping in their bed, because they’re going to have|they will
