Tune into enough self-improvement gurus, and you'll be easy to convince yourself that napping is a secret weapon: more than a quick fix following a bad night’s sleep, but a path to improved recall, a brighter outlook and maybe improved athletic performance. Premier League athletes swear by it – as do concert pianists, fighters and business leaders. But if you haven’t got a dedicated nap-room or a career that allows regular snoozing, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a quick nap to justify the effort? Can you find a dependable method to fall asleep fast? Plus, is it possible to truly ensure you will get up feeling better, not worse?
Identifying The Drive to Snooze
“We can identify three main reasons for daytime sleep for many people,” explains a leading sleep and circadian science specialist. “Firstly, there's known as make-up sleep, essentially what you do after experiencing insufficient sleep the night before. Secondly, there's preparatory napping, which involves anticipating sleep loss in the future, such as if you’re working on night shifts. Finally, there's “appetitive drive”, which simply boils down to desire: you have a chance to nap in the afternoon, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The first thing to undertake, so, is to examine why you want to nap. “Naps can be genuinely useful when night sleeping is being disrupted because of factors outside your control – for instance, if you’re a new parent, or if you are healing from illness or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you nap because your nighttime sleep is unstable or broken, that’s often a signal your sleep drive is not as strong as required. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into a contributing factor, instead of the fix. Employ naps as a temporary measure to address immediate needs – the main goal ought to remain a solid and consistent sleep at night.”
The Ideal Nap Duration
Therefore that naps ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to affect your overnight rest, and ideally are not recommended post-3 p.m. (based on the time you retire in the evening). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. In one of a prominent study about napping, experts discovered that crew members showed improvements of over 50% in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this included an initial six-minute nodding-off period). “My advice is setting an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – the majority are asleep within 10 minutes,” notes a specialist. “There’s a lot of guidance out there about the ideal number of time, yet that often make people feel more anxious above all – and the most counterproductive thing one can do while aiming to get to sleep is to stress over it.”
Should you decide to nap for a longer period, steer clear of the period between 45 and 60 minutes that promotes sleep inertia, that foggy state upon waking. “Research indicates it is preferable to take an extended nap of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” notes the sleep scientist. “45 minutes is long enough to put you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel groggy when you get up – whereas if you nap for a bit longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you’re likely to finish of a sleep cycle and will probably wake up feeling more refreshed. But if you’re sleeping for a long period, it will affect your sleep in the evening.”
Establishing the Right Sleep Space
Regarding specific techniques, recommendations vary. Some experts propose adopting comparable habits one would use to promote restful sleep: a silent space, a cozy bed and as much darkness as possible. Some advise that you should simply nap on a couch in whatever light is available – to avoid sleep inertia and to preserve your bedroom as the space you associate with *real* sleep. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to will,” says an expert. “Lacking any sleepiness, it is more challenging to lie down and basically instruct yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some sleep pressure present to initiate sleep in the first place. For me, it's possible to snooze in full light and naturally wake up alarm-free, however, what assists most folks is to look for an instance where they feel naturally feeling a bit drowsy and then simply ease into sleep.”
It’s worth experimenting, and should options are scarce – for example, when aiming to squeeze in 40 winks during a commute or in a work pod – it's acceptable to employ some accessories. “Coaching professional sportspeople, I suggest that they not rely on sleeping in their bed, since they’re going to have|they will
