Hear a few performance experts, and you'll be simple to think that dozing is a powerful tool: not just a band-aid following a bad night’s sleep, but a shortcut to enhanced cognition, improved mood and possibly a faster 5k run time. Professional athletes are all at it – and so are professional piano players, UFC champions and business leaders. However, if you don't have a dedicated nap-room or a career that permits frequent naps, can there *honestly* worthwhile perks to a burst of shut-eye to justify the kerfuffle? Can you find a reliable way to nod off promptly? And can you honestly promise you’ll wake up feeling improved, instead of groggy?
Exploring Your Drive to Snooze
“Experts note three main reasons for daytime sleep among most adults,” notes a leading sleep science specialist. “The first is known as compensatory napping, essentially the action you take following a lack of sleep the previous night. The second is pre-emptive sleep, where you are preparing for sleep loss coming up, for instance during graveyard shifts. Finally, there's “appetitive drive”, which simply boils down to wanting: there is a moment to nap during the day, and it feels nice to nap.”
The initial step to undertake, then, is to think about your nap motivation. “Napping can be really helpful when nighttime sleep is being disrupted for reasons outside your control – such as, for caring for an infant, or you’re recovering from illness or intense exercise,” states a sleep specialist. “However, if you nap as your night sleep is unstable or unreliable, that is frequently an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it should be. In those cases, napping can become a contributing factor, rather than the answer. Use napping for brief periods for short-term problems – the focus should still be a robust and regular overnight rest.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
Therefore that napping shouldn’t be long enough to interfere with your overnight rest, and ideally should not occur in the late afternoon (contingent on what time you go to bed overnight). What duration is wise? Recommendations vary. In one of the most-cited studies about napping, researchers at Nasa noted that astronauts showed up to a 54% increase in attentiveness and a 34% increase in cognitive performance following a nap of 26 minutes (technically, this involved an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting a timer for half an hour or less – many individuals fall asleep quickly,” explains a sleep coach. “There is plenty of advice around about the perfect length of minutes, however, that can make people feel more anxious than anything – and the least helpful action one can do when attempting to nod off is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to sleep for longer, avoid the 45-60 minute window that induces that sluggish feeling, that disoriented sensation upon waking. “The science would say it's more effective to have a longer nap of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” says the professor. “45 minutes is long enough to put you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel disoriented when you wake up – while if you nap for slightly longer to a full sleep cycle, you will probably to be on the end of a sleep cycle and should get up feeling more alert. However, if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it can influence how you sleep that night.”
Finding an Ideal Sleep Space
As for exact methodologies, recommendations vary. Certain specialists suggest adopting the same protocol one would use to promote quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a supportive surface and as much darkness as you can manage. Some advise that you should simply nap on a couch with ambient lighting is available – to prevent sleep inertia and to preserve your bed as the space your brain links with proper sleep. “Sleep is notoriously difficult to command,” explains an expert. “Lacking any sleepiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and practically command yourself to go to sleep. You need some sleep pressure present to initiate sleep in the first place. Personally, I can often take a nap in full light and naturally wake up alarm-free, but what helps most folks is to wait for a moment that they’re naturally slightly tired and just gently relax into it.”
Experimentation is key, and when you have few options – for example, if you’re trying to fit in 40 winks on a train or in a soundproof office pod – it's acceptable to use some accessories. “Coaching elite athletes, I advise that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
