Hear plenty of performance gurus, making it easy to believe that dozing is a powerful tool: rather than a quick fix following a bad night’s sleep, but a shortcut towards improved recall, improved mood and maybe a faster 5k run time. Elite soccer players do it regularly – as do concert pianists, fighters and media moguls. But if you lack a room for napping or a career that permits regular snoozing, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye for it to be worth the kerfuffle? Does there exist a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you honestly promise you will arise feeling improved, not worse?
Identifying Your Drive to Snooze
“We can identify three main reasons for taking a nap for many people,” notes an expert sleep and circadian science researcher. “The first is what we call compensatory napping, that is the action you take when you’ve had insufficient sleep the night before. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, which involves anticipating sleep loss coming up, for instance when working on night shifts. The third reason is “appetitive drive”, which basically is about desire: there is an opportunity to nap during the day, and it's enjoyable to indulge.”
The initial step to consider, so, is to examine why you want to nap. “Napping can be genuinely useful when night sleeping is being disrupted due to causes outside your control – for example, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or you’re recovering from sickness or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep physiologist. “However, if you’re napping as your nighttime sleep seems unreliable or poor, that is frequently an indicator your sleep drive is not where it should be. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, not the solution. Use napping as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the main goal ought to remain a robust and regular sleep at night.”
The Optimal Nap Duration
This implies that naps shouldn’t be too extended to affect your overnight rest, and preferably shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on when you go to bed at night). What's a reasonable length? Recommendations vary. Among a prominent study on the subject, experts found that astronauts experienced a boost of up to 54% in vigilance and a 34% boost in cognitive performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this counted a six-minute long sleep onset time). “My advice is setting a timer for half an hour or less – many individuals are asleep in under ten minutes,” notes a specialist. “There’s a lot of guidance out there regarding the perfect length of minutes, yet that often lead individuals to become more worried than anything else – and the worst thing you can do while aiming to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to sleep for longer, bypass the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep grogginess, that disoriented sensation upon waking. “Research suggests it's more effective to take a longer nap of one to one and a half hours rather than a mid-length nap,” explains the sleep scientist. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to plunge you into a deep sleep stage and you’re more likely to feel disoriented when you get up – whereas if you nap for a little longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you will probably to be on the end a natural sleep cycle and should get up feeling more refreshed. However, if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it can influence the quality of your sleep that night.”
Creating the Right Snooze Setting
When it comes to specific techniques, recommendations vary. A few professionals recommend adopting similar routines you’d use to encourage restful sleep: a peaceful area, a supportive surface and maximum darkness as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that you should simply nap on the sofa in the existing light is present – both to discourage sleep inertia and to preserve your bed as the place your mind associates with *real* sleep. “Sleep is something really tricky to will,” explains a sleep coach. “Lacking the urge to sleep, it becomes harder to get comfortable and basically tell yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some drive available to bring the sleep on initially. Personally, I can often nap during the day and wake up naturally without a timer, but what helps a lot of people is to anticipate a moment that they’re naturally feeling a bit drowsy and calmly relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and should you have few options – for example, when aiming to fit in a quick nap during a commute or in a soundproof office pod – there’s nothing wrong to use a few tools. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I advise that they not rely on sleeping in their bed, because they’re going to have|they will
