The Key to an Ideal Snooze: Timing, Location & for How Long?
Listen to enough productivity gurus, and you'll be simple to believe that a nap is a superpower: not just a quick fix after a bad night’s sleep, but a route to enhanced cognition, better spirits and possibly improved athletic performance. Elite soccer players are all at it – along with professional piano players, mixed martial artists and business leaders. Yet, when you haven’t got a special sleep space or a career that allows daytime sleep, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a short sleep for it to be worth the hassle? Is there a dependable method to fall asleep fast? And can you really guarantee you will arise feeling better, instead of groggy?
Understanding The Reasons for Napping
“We can identify three primary motivations for taking a nap in the adult population,” says a leading circadian rhythm specialist. “The first is known as compensatory napping, that is the action you take after experiencing a lack of sleep the previous night. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, which involves pre-empting sleep loss in the future, for instance during overnight shifts. The third reason is “hedonic napping”, which basically comes down to wanting: there is a moment to nap during the day, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The first thing to consider, then, is to think about your reason for napping. “Napping can be genuinely useful when overnight rest is being disrupted because of factors you cannot change – such as, when you are caring for an infant, or recovering after being ill or strenuous activity,” says a sleep expert. “However, if you’re napping as your sleep at night feels fragile or broken, that can be a sign your need for sleep is not at the level required. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, rather than the answer. Utilize daytime sleep as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the focus must always be a strong and predictable sleep at night.”
The Perfect Snooze Time
Therefore that daytime sleep shouldn’t be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your nighttime sleep, and ideally shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on the time you go to bed overnight). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. Among the most referenced research regarding daytime sleep, experts discovered that space travelers showed improvements of over 50% in alertness and a 34% boost in task performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this included a six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting a timer for half an hour or less – the majority fall asleep within 10 minutes,” explains a sleep coach. “You'll find much guidance out there regarding the ideal number for sleeping, however, that can cause people to feel more anxious above all – and the worst thing one can do when trying to fall asleep is worry about it.”
If you’re going to nap for a longer period, avoid the period between 45 and 60 minutes that encourages sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “Research would say it is preferable to opt for an extended nap of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” explains the professor. “Three-quarters of an hour is sufficient to plunge you into a deep sleep stage making it more likely to feel groggy when you get up – whereas if you extend it a bit longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to be on the end of a sleep cycle and will probably wake up feeling more alert. Though if you’re sleeping for 90 minutes, it will affect how you sleep in the evening.”
Finding an Ideal Sleep Space
When it comes to specific techniques, advice differs. A few professionals recommend adopting similar routines you’d use to promote quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and minimal light as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that you should merely snooze on a couch with ambient lighting is available – to prevent sleep inertia and to maintain your bedroom as the space your brain links with proper sleep. “Sleep is quite challenging to command,” explains a sleep coach. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it is tougher to recline and essentially tell yourself to go to sleep. There’s got to be some drive there to bring the sleep on in the first place. Personally, I can often take a nap during the day and naturally wake up alarm-free, though, what aids a lot of people is to wait for a time where they feel naturally somewhat sleepy and then simply ease into sleep.”
It’s worth experimenting, and if options are scarce – such as, when aiming to fit in 40 winks during a commute or in a work pod – it is perfectly fine to use some accessories. “Coaching footballers, I advise that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
