Hear plenty of performance experts, and it’s tempting to convince yourself that napping is a secret weapon: not just a band-aid after a bad night’s sleep, but a path towards enhanced cognition, better spirits and maybe improved athletic performance. Elite footballers do it regularly – along with concert pianists, mixed martial artists and high-profile executives. However, if you don't have a dedicated nap-room or a career that permits daytime sleep, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a short sleep to justify the effort? Does there exist a reliable way to fall asleep fast? Plus, is it possible to really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling improved, instead of groggy?
Exploring Your Reasons for Napping
“We can identify three main reasons for taking a nap among most adults,” says a leading sleep science professor. “Firstly, there's termed recovery napping, which is the action you take after experiencing insufficient sleep the night before. The second is pre-emptive sleep, which involves preparing for sleep loss coming up, for instance during overnight shifts. Finally, there's “pleasure-based sleep”, which basically boils down to desire: you get an opportunity to doze in the daytime, and it's pleasant to nap.”
The first thing to do, then, is consider your reason for napping. “Napping can be genuinely useful when nighttime sleep is disturbed due to causes you cannot change – for example, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing after being ill or strenuous activity,” says a sleep specialist. “Yet when you’re napping since your night sleep feels fragile or poor, that can be a signal your need for sleep is not where it should be. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, rather than the answer. Use napping as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the main goal ought to remain a solid and consistent night’s sleep.”
The Perfect Nap Duration
Therefore that napping shouldn’t be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your nighttime sleep, and preferably are not recommended post-3 p.m. (based on when you go to bed in the evening). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. From a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, researchers at Nasa found that space travelers experienced a boost of up to 54% in vigilance and a 34% boost in performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this involved a six-minute long falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting a timer for 20-30 minutes – most people doze off in under ten minutes,” says a sleep expert. “There is plenty of guidance out there concerning the optimal amount of minutes, however, that can cause people to feel more anxious than anything – and the most counterproductive thing you can do when attempting to fall asleep is worry about it.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, avoid the 45-60 minute window that encourages sleep inertia, that disoriented sensation upon waking. “Research suggests it is preferable to have an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes compared to a medium-length nap,” explains the sleep scientist. “45 minutes is enough time to put you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel groggy when you wake up – while if you extend it a little longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to finish a full cycle and will probably wake up feeling more alert. Though if you’re sleeping for an hour and a half, it can influence how you sleep in the evening.”
Establishing the Perfect Sleep Space
As for specific techniques, recommendations vary. A few professionals suggest using the same protocol you’d use to encourage restful sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and maximum darkness as possible. Others suggest that you should just doze on a couch with ambient lighting is present – both to discourage sleep inertia and to maintain your bed as the environment you associate with *real* sleep. “Sleep is something really tricky to force,” says a specialist. “If you don’t have the urge to sleep, it becomes harder to lie down and essentially tell yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some drive available to start the process to begin with. Personally, I can often take a nap in full light and wake up naturally alarm-free, however, what assists many individuals is to wait for an instance where they feel naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently ease into sleep.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and when options are scarce – such as, if attempting to fit in 40 winks on a train or in a work pod – it's acceptable with bringing some accessories. “Coaching professional sportspeople, I advise that they not rely on napping in bed, as they’re going to have|they will
