Hear a few performance experts, and you'll be tempting to think that dozing is a secret weapon: rather than a sticking plaster following poor sleep, but a route towards enhanced cognition, improved mood and maybe a faster 5k run time. Premier League soccer players do it regularly – as do concert pianists, UFC champions & business leaders. However, if you haven’t got a special sleep space or employment that encourages frequent naps, can there *honestly* enough benefits to a burst of shut-eye to justify the hassle? Is there a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you will get up feeling better, rather than worse?
Exploring Your Reasons for Napping
“Experts note three key drivers for daytime sleep in the adult population,” says a professor of circadian rhythm professor. “Firstly, there's known as recovery napping, that is the action you take when you’ve had a lack of sleep overnight. The second is preparatory napping, when you are pre-empting sleep loss ahead, such as if you’re working graveyard shifts. Finally, there's “appetitive drive”, which essentially boils down to the wish: there is a moment to doze in the afternoon, and it's pleasant to nap.”
The first thing to consider, therefore, is to examine your reason for napping. “Napping can be genuinely useful when night sleeping is disturbed for reasons outside your control – for example, for caring for an infant, or you’re recovering from illness or heavy physical exertion,” states a sleep expert. “Yet when you nap since your nighttime sleep seems unreliable or unreliable, that’s often an indicator your sleep drive is not as strong as it should be. In those cases, naps can become part of the issue, rather than the answer. Employ naps as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the priority should still be a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
This implies that daytime sleep ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your nighttime sleep, and ideally shouldn’t take place in the late afternoon (based on the time you go to bed at night). What's a reasonable length? Advice differs. In one of the most-cited studies on the subject, researchers at Nasa found that crew members had improvements of over 50% in attentiveness and a 34% increase in task performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this included a six-minute long sleep onset time). “I recommend using an alarm for half an hour or less – many individuals doze off in under ten minutes,” says a specialist. “There is plenty of advice around regarding the ideal number for sleeping, however, that can lead individuals to become more stressed than anything – and the most counterproductive thing you can do when trying to nod off is to be anxious.”
If you’re going to sleep for longer, steer clear of the 45-60 minute window that promotes sleep inertia, that disoriented sensation when you wake. “Studies indicates it’s better to have an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes than a medium-length one,” notes the expert. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to plunge you into slow-wave sleep and you’re more likely to feel disoriented when you wake up – whereas if you take it slightly longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you will probably to be on the end a natural sleep cycle and will probably get up feeling more refreshed. However, if you’re sleeping for a long period, it may impact how you sleep that night.”
Finding the Right Nap Environment
When it comes to exact methodologies, advice differs. Some experts recommend adopting the same protocol one would use to encourage restful sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and as much darkness as is feasible. Some advise that you should merely snooze on a couch in the existing light happens to be around – to prevent sleep inertia and to preserve your sleeping quarters as the place your brain links with *real* sleep. “Sleep is something really tricky to will,” explains an expert. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and basically tell yourself to go to sleep. There’s got to be some sleep pressure present to initiate sleep in the first place. I can usually take a nap during the day and wake up naturally alarm-free, though, what aids a lot of people is to wait for an instance that they’re naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently relax into it.”
Experimentation is key, and if your choices are limited – for example, if attempting to squeeze in 40 winks during a commute or at the office – it is perfectly fine to employ a few tools. “In my work with elite athletes, I advise that they avoid becoming accustomed to their own bed for naps, as they’re going to have|they will
