Hear plenty of performance experts, and you'll be tempting to convince yourself that a nap is a powerful tool: rather than a band-aid after a bad night’s sleep, but a path to improved recall, better spirits and perhaps improved athletic performance. Elite soccer players are all at it – as do musicians, mixed martial artists and business leaders. But if you don't have a dedicated nap-room or a job that encourages regular snoozing, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye to justify the kerfuffle? Is there a dependable method to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling improved, not worse?
Exploring The Drive to Snooze
“Experts note three primary motivations for taking a nap for many people,” notes an expert circadian rhythm professor. “The first is termed compensatory napping, that is what you do following insufficient sleep the previous night. Secondly, there's preparatory napping, where you are pre-empting a sleep deficit ahead, for example when working graveyard shifts. Finally, there's “hedonic napping”, which basically comes down to desire: there is a moment to nap in the daytime, and it feels nice to indulge.”
The first thing to undertake, therefore, is consider your nap motivation. “Napping can be genuinely useful when nighttime sleep is being disrupted for reasons beyond your control – for example, when you are a new parent, or recovering from illness or intense exercise,” states a sleep expert. “Yet when you take a nap because your sleep at night is unstable or unreliable, that can be a signal your sleep drive is not where it should be. In those cases, naps can become a contributing factor, rather than the answer. Use napping as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the focus ought to remain a solid and consistent overnight rest.”
The Perfect Snooze Time
This means that daytime sleep must not be too extended to affect your nighttime sleep, and best are not recommended after about 3pm (depending on the time you retire at night). What duration is wise? Advice differs. In one of the most referenced research about napping, researchers at Nasa noted that crew members experienced improvements of over 50% in attentiveness and a 34% increase in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (to be precise, this included an initial six-minute nodding-off period). “I’d suggest setting an alarm for half an hour or less – the majority fall asleep quickly,” notes a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of guidance out there about the ideal number for sleeping, yet that often make people feel more anxious than anything – and the least helpful action one can do when attempting to fall asleep is to stress over it.”
Should you decide to sleep for longer, bypass the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep inertia, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “Research suggests it's more effective to have a longer nap of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” explains the expert. “Three-quarters of an hour is enough time to send you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel disoriented upon awakening – however, if you take it a little longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you’re likely to be on the end a natural sleep cycle and are likely to get up feeling more alert. Though if you nap for a long period, it will affect how you sleep that night.”
Establishing the Right Sleep Space
Regarding exact methodologies, advice differs. A few professionals recommend adopting comparable habits one would use to encourage restful sleep: a silent space, a cozy bed and as much darkness as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that one could simply nap on the sofa with ambient lighting is present – to avoid post-nap grogginess and to “protect” your bedroom as the space your brain links with nighttime rest. “Sleep is quite challenging to force,” notes an expert. “Lacking any drowsiness, it becomes harder to recline and essentially instruct yourself to fall asleep. There’s got to be some drive available to start the process initially. Personally, I can often nap in broad daylight and naturally wake up without a timer, though, what aids many individuals is to wait for a time where they feel naturally somewhat sleepy and then simply allow sleep to come.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and should options are scarce – for instance, if attempting to fit in a quick nap while traveling or at the office – it is perfectly fine with bringing a few tools. “In my work with footballers, I recommend that they avoid becoming accustomed to sleeping in their bed, since they’re going to have|they will
