Tune into a few performance experts, and it’s easy to believe that dozing is a secret weapon: more than a sticking plaster following a bad night’s sleep, but a shortcut towards improved recall, improved mood and perhaps a faster 5k run time. Premier League athletes do it regularly – along with musicians, fighters and high-profile executives. However, if you haven’t got a room for napping or a job that allows daytime sleep, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a short sleep to merit the hassle? Does there exist a dependable method to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling refreshed, instead of groggy?
Exploring Your Drive to Snooze
“Experts note three primary motivations for napping for many people,” says an expert sleep science researcher. “The first is known as make-up sleep, that is what happens when you’ve had a lack of sleep the night before. Secondly, there's preparatory napping, when you are pre-empting insufficient sleep coming up, such as if you’re working on night shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially comes down to desire: you have a chance to sleep in the daytime, and it feels nice to indulge.”
The primary task to do, then, is consider your reason for napping. “Napping can be genuinely useful when overnight rest gets interrupted for reasons outside your control – for example, for a new parent, or if you are healing from sickness or strenuous activity,” states a sleep specialist. “Yet when you take a nap because your sleep at night feels fragile or broken, that is frequently an indicator your need for sleep is not where required. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, not the solution. Employ naps as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the priority ought to remain a solid and consistent night’s sleep.”
The Perfect Snooze Time
This implies that naps shouldn’t be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your sleep at night, and preferably should not occur after about 3pm (contingent on when you retire in the evening). What duration is wise? Recommendations vary. In one of the most-cited studies about napping, experts found that space travelers showed up to a 54% increase in attentiveness and a 34% boost in task performance after a 26-minute nap (technically, this included a six-minute long sleep onset time). “My advice is using an alarm for half an hour or less – the majority are asleep quickly,” notes a sleep coach. “There is plenty of advice around concerning the optimal amount of time, however, that can lead individuals to become more anxious than anything else – and the worst thing you can do when trying to get to sleep is worry about it.”
If you plan to sleep for longer, avoid the 45-60 minute window that encourages sleep inertia, that spaced-out feeling when you awaken. “Studies suggests it is preferable to have a lengthier snooze lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” says the expert. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to plunge you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish when you wake up – while if you nap for a bit longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to be completing of a sleep cycle and should awaken feeling more refreshed. However, if you're dozing for 90 minutes, it will affect the quality of your sleep in the evening.”
Establishing an Ideal Snooze Setting
Regarding precise methods, recommendations vary. A few professionals propose employing similar routines you’d use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a silent space, a supportive surface and maximum darkness as you can manage. Some advise that you should just doze in a chair with ambient lighting is available – to avoid sleep inertia and to preserve your sleeping quarters as the place your brain links with nighttime rest. “Sleep is something really tricky to force,” says an expert. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it is tougher to recline and essentially instruct yourself to go to sleep. You need some sleep pressure present to initiate sleep to begin with. For me, it's possible to snooze in broad daylight and wake up naturally without an alarm, however, what assists many individuals is to wait for a time that they’re naturally feeling a bit drowsy and then simply ease into sleep.”
It’s worth experimenting, and if options are scarce – for instance, when aiming to squeeze in a quick nap on a train or in a work pod – it is perfectly fine with bringing a few tools. “In my work with elite athletes, I suggest that they avoid becoming accustomed to sleeping in their bed, since they’re going to have|they will
