The Key to an Ideal Nap: When, Where and for How Long?
Tune into a few performance podcasters, making it simple to believe that napping is a secret weapon: not just a band-aid following a bad night’s sleep, but a path towards improved recall, improved mood and perhaps quicker running times. Professional soccer players are all at it – and so are musicians, fighters & high-profile executives. But if you lack a room for napping or a career that encourages regular snoozing, can there *honestly* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye for it to be worth the hassle? Is there a dependable method to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you honestly promise you’ll wake up feeling improved, rather than worse?
Identifying The Nap Motivation
“Experts note three primary motivations for daytime sleep for many people,” notes an expert circadian rhythm researcher. “Firstly, there's what we call make-up sleep, which is what you do following insufficient sleep the night before. The second is preparatory napping, where you are preparing for a sleep deficit ahead, for instance when working graveyard shifts. The third is called “hedonic napping”, which basically is about wanting: you get a chance to sleep during the day, and it feels nice to do it.”
The primary task to consider, so, is to examine why you want to nap. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when overnight rest is being disrupted due to causes beyond your control – for instance, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or you’re recovering from sickness or intense exercise,” says a sleep specialist. “But if you’re napping as your sleep at night seems unreliable or broken, that’s often a sign your sleep drive is not at the level it should be. Under those circumstances, naps can become a contributing factor, not the solution. Employ naps for brief periods to address immediate needs – the main goal should still be a robust and regular sleep at night.”
The Ideal Nap Length
Therefore that daytime sleep must not be long enough to disrupt your overnight rest, and ideally shouldn’t take place in the late afternoon (depending on the time you go to bed overnight). How long is sensible? Recommendations vary. In one of the most referenced research on the subject, researchers at Nasa found that space travelers had up to a 54% increase in vigilance and a 34% increase in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (to be precise, this counted a six-minute sleep onset time). “My advice is setting an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – the majority doze off in under ten minutes,” notes a specialist. “There is plenty of guidance out there concerning the optimal amount of time, but that tends to cause people to feel more worried above all – and the most counterproductive thing you can do when attempting to nod off is worry about it.”
Should you decide to sleep for longer, steer clear of the 45 to 60 minute range that promotes that sluggish feeling, that foggy state upon waking. “Research suggests it's more effective to opt for an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” notes the expert. “Forty-five minutes is enough time to plunge you into slow-wave sleep and it is more probable to feel groggy when you wake up – whereas if you nap for a little longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be completing a natural sleep cycle and should wake up feeling more alert. But if you’re sleeping for an hour and a half, it will affect how you sleep in the evening.”
Creating the Right Sleep Space
Regarding specific techniques, suggestions are diverse. Some experts propose employing the same protocol you’d use to promote restful sleep: a quiet room, a supportive surface and maximum darkness as you can manage. Others suggest that you should merely snooze on the sofa with ambient lighting is available – both to discourage sleep inertia and to preserve your bedroom as the environment your mind associates with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to will,” explains a specialist. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and practically tell yourself to fall asleep. There’s got to be some sleep pressure present to initiate sleep to begin with. I can usually nap during the day and wake up naturally without an alarm, but what helps many individuals is to anticipate a moment where they feel naturally slightly tired and just gently ease into sleep.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and should options are scarce – for instance, if you’re trying to squeeze in 40 winks during a commute or in a soundproof office pod – it is perfectly fine to employ sleep aids. “Coaching elite athletes, I suggest that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, since they’re going to have|they will
