Listen to enough productivity podcasters, and you'll be easy to think that napping is a superpower: not just a sticking plaster after restless night, but a shortcut towards a better memory, a brighter outlook and possibly improved athletic performance. Professional footballers swear by it – and so are professional piano players, fighters & media moguls. But if you lack a special sleep space or employment that allows daytime sleep, can there *honestly* enough benefits to a burst of shut-eye to justify the effort? Can you find a dependable method to fall asleep fast? And can you truly ensure you will arise feeling improved, not worse?
Exploring Your Drive to Snooze
“There are three key drivers for daytime sleep among most adults,” explains a professor of sleep and circadian science researcher. “The first is termed make-up sleep, which is the action you take after experiencing a lack of sleep overnight. Secondly, there's prophylactic napping, when you are preparing for sleep loss coming up, for example if you’re working on night shifts. The third reason is “hedonic napping”, which basically boils down to wanting: you get a moment to nap during the day, and it's enjoyable to nap.”
The first thing to consider, so, is to examine why you want to nap. “Daytime sleep can be truly beneficial when nighttime sleep gets interrupted because of factors outside your control – such as, if you’re caring for an infant, or recovering from sickness or strenuous activity,” states a sleep expert. “Yet when you’re napping because your nighttime sleep feels fragile or poor, that is frequently a sign your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it should be. In those cases, naps can become a contributing factor, not the solution. Use napping for brief periods for temporary issues – the focus ought to remain a solid and consistent night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
Therefore that naps must not be long enough to disrupt your sleep at night, and best shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on the time you retire overnight). How long is sensible? Guidelines are mixed. From the most-cited studies about napping, researchers at Nasa discovered that crew members had up to a 54% increase in vigilance and a 34% boost in task performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this included a six-minute long falling asleep phase). “My advice is using an alarm for half an hour or less – most people are asleep quickly,” says a specialist. “There is plenty of recommendations about the perfect length of time, but that tends to cause people to feel more worried than anything else – and the worst thing one can do when attempting to nod off is worry about it.”
If you plan to nap for a longer period, steer clear of the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep inertia, that foggy state when you awaken. “Research would say it is preferable to have a longer nap of 60 to 90 minutes compared to a medium-length nap,” explains the professor. “Three-quarters of an hour is long enough to send you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish upon awakening – however, if you extend it slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you’re likely to finish a natural sleep cycle and will probably get up feeling more rejuvenated. But if you’re sleeping for 90 minutes, it will affect how you sleep that night.”
Finding the Perfect Nap Environment
Regarding precise methods, recommendations vary. Certain specialists propose employing comparable habits you’d use to promote quality nighttime sleep: a silent space, a supportive surface and as much darkness as you can manage. Others suggest that it's fine to just doze on a couch in whatever light happens to be around – both to discourage sleep inertia and to “protect” your bedroom as the place you associate with proper sleep. “Sleep is quite challenging to command,” explains an expert. “If you don’t have the urge to sleep, it is tougher to lie down and practically command yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some sleep pressure there to bring the sleep on in the first place. I can usually snooze in broad daylight and wake up naturally without an alarm, though, what aids a lot of people is to anticipate a moment where they feel naturally feeling a bit drowsy and calmly allow sleep to come.”
Experimentation is key, and should you have few options – for instance, if you’re trying to fit in 40 winks while traveling or in a soundproof office pod – it's acceptable with bringing a few tools. “Coaching footballers, I recommend that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, because they’re going to have|they will