Hear enough performance experts, and it’s simple to believe that a nap is a secret weapon: more than a band-aid following restless night, but a shortcut towards improved recall, improved mood and possibly improved athletic performance. Elite footballers do it regularly – and so are concert pianists, mixed martial artists & high-profile executives. However, if you lack a room for napping or employment that allows regular snoozing, is it *truly* enough benefits to a burst of shut-eye to merit the effort? Does there exist a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you truly ensure you will get up feeling improved, not worse?
Understanding Your Drive to Snooze
“We can identify three primary motivations for daytime sleep for many people,” explains an expert sleep science specialist. “One is known as make-up sleep, that is what you do following insufficient sleep the previous night. Another is prophylactic napping, where you are preparing for a sleep deficit coming up, for instance if you’re working overnight shifts. Finally, there's “appetitive drive”, which essentially comes down to the wish: there is a chance to doze in the daytime, and it's enjoyable to do it.”
The first thing to do, so, is consider your reason for napping. “Napping can be really helpful when overnight rest is disturbed for reasons you cannot change – such as, if you’re caring for an infant, or if you are healing from illness or heavy physical exertion,” states a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you’re napping as your nighttime sleep is unstable or broken, that’s often an indicator your sleep drive is not as strong as required. Under those circumstances, naps can become a contributing factor, rather than the answer. Use napping as a short-term solution for short-term problems – the main goal should still be a strong and predictable overnight rest.”
The Perfect Nap Duration
This means that daytime sleep must not be long enough to interfere with your sleep at night, and best should not occur post-3 p.m. (depending on the time you go to bed overnight). How long is sensible? Guidelines are mixed. In one of the most-cited studies about napping, experts discovered that astronauts experienced up to a 54% increase in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in task performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this counted a six-minute sleep onset time). “I recommend setting a timer for 20 to 30 minutes – many individuals doze off in under ten minutes,” explains a specialist. “There’s a lot of guidance out there regarding the optimal amount for sleeping, yet that often lead individuals to become more worried than anything else – and the least helpful action one can do while aiming to get to sleep is worry about it.”
Should you decide to sleep for longer, steer clear of the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling when you wake. “The science would say it’s better to opt for an extended nap of 60 to 90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” explains the professor. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to put you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel disoriented when you wake up – while if you take it slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you will probably to finish a full cycle and will probably get up feeling more alert. Though if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it will affect the quality of your sleep in the evening.”
Finding the Right Sleep Space
As for precise methods, recommendations vary. A few professionals propose adopting comparable habits you use to encourage a good night’s sleep: a silent space, a cozy bed and minimal light as you can manage. Others suggest that one could simply nap in a chair with ambient lighting is present – to avoid that groggy feeling and to maintain your bedroom as the environment your mind associates with *real* sleep. “Sleep is something really tricky to command,” says a sleep coach. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it is more challenging to lie down and essentially command yourself to nod off. You need some sleep pressure present to bring the sleep on initially. For me, it's possible to nap in full light and naturally wake up alarm-free, but what helps a lot of people is to anticipate a time that they’re naturally slightly tired and then simply ease into sleep.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if your choices are limited – such as, if you’re trying to squeeze in some shut-eye while traveling or at the office – there’s nothing wrong with bringing sleep aids. “When I’m working with elite athletes, I suggest that they not rely on their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
