Tune into plenty of performance gurus, and you'll be tempting to convince yourself that napping is a superpower: not just a quick fix following poor sleep, but a shortcut to improved recall, improved mood and maybe improved athletic performance. Elite footballers are all at it – along with professional piano players, mixed martial artists & media moguls. However, if you haven’t got a special sleep space or employment that encourages regular snoozing, can there *honestly* enough benefits to a short sleep to merit the effort? Can you find a reliable way to fall asleep fast? Plus, is it possible to honestly promise you will get up feeling refreshed, not worse?
Understanding Your Reasons for Napping
“Experts note three main reasons for taking a nap in the adult population,” explains a professor of sleep science professor. “One is termed make-up sleep, that is the action you take after experiencing poor sleep the night before. The second is pre-emptive sleep, which involves pre-empting a sleep deficit in the future, for example when working graveyard shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which basically comes down to the wish: you get a chance to nap in the afternoon, and it feels nice to do it.”
The primary task to undertake, therefore, is to examine your reason for napping. “Daytime sleep can be really helpful when nighttime sleep gets interrupted due to causes you cannot change – for example, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing from illness or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep expert. “But if you nap since your night sleep is unstable or unreliable, that’s often a signal your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it needs to be. In those cases, daytime sleep can turn into a contributing factor, instead of the fix. Use napping as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the main goal should still be a robust and regular sleep at night.”
The Perfect Nap Length
This means that daytime sleep ought not to be long enough to disrupt your nighttime sleep, and preferably should not occur in the late afternoon (based on the time you go to bed at night). What's a reasonable length? Guidelines are mixed. Among the most referenced research about napping, researchers at Nasa discovered that astronauts had up to a 54% increase in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in cognitive performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this involved an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest setting a timer for half an hour or less – most people doze off within 10 minutes,” says a specialist. “There is plenty of recommendations concerning the ideal number of time, yet that often make people feel more worried than anything – and the most counterproductive thing you can possibly do when attempting to get to sleep is worry about it.”
Should you decide to sleep for longer, avoid the period between 45 and 60 minutes that encourages sleep inertia, that spaced-out feeling when you awaken. “Studies suggests it is preferable to opt for a longer nap of 60 to 90 minutes than a medium-length one,” says the professor. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to put you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel groggy upon awakening – while if you nap for slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to finish a natural sleep cycle and will probably awaken feeling more refreshed. But if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it may impact your sleep that night.”
Establishing an Ideal Sleep Space
As for specific techniques, suggestions are diverse. Certain specialists propose using similar routines one would use to foster a good night’s sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and maximum darkness as you can manage. Others suggest that one could just doze on the sofa in the existing light is present – to prevent sleep inertia and to maintain your bedroom as the environment your mind associates with *real* sleep. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to command,” says an expert. “Lacking any sleepiness, it becomes harder to lie down and essentially instruct yourself to go to sleep. There’s got to be some sleep pressure present to initiate sleep initially. For me, it's possible to take a nap in full light and naturally wake up alarm-free, but what helps most folks is to wait for a time when they are naturally slightly tired and calmly relax into it.”
It’s worth experimenting, and should options are scarce – such as, if you’re trying to squeeze in some shut-eye on a train or at the office – it is perfectly fine with bringing sleep aids. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I suggest that they don’t get used to napping in bed, because they’re going to have|they will
