Tune into enough productivity gurus, and it’s tempting to convince yourself that dozing is a superpower: more than a band-aid following a bad night’s sleep, but a route to improved recall, better spirits and possibly improved athletic performance. Professional athletes swear by it – as do musicians, UFC champions and media moguls. However, if you don't have a special sleep space or a job that allows frequent naps, can there *honestly* worthwhile perks to a quick nap to justify the effort? Does there exist a dependable method to fall asleep fast? Plus, is it possible to honestly promise you will get up feeling better, instead of groggy?
Identifying Your Drive to Snooze
“There are three primary motivations for taking a nap in the adult population,” notes an expert circadian rhythm specialist. “The first is what we call recovery napping, that is what happens after experiencing a lack of sleep the night before. Another is preparatory napping, which involves preparing for sleep loss ahead, for instance when working on night shifts. Finally, there's “pleasure-based sleep”, which simply is about wanting: you have a chance to nap in the afternoon, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The primary task to undertake, therefore, is consider your nap motivation. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when nighttime sleep is disturbed for reasons you cannot change – for example, when you are caring for an infant, or if you are healing from illness or heavy physical exertion,” states a sleep specialist. “But if you’re napping as your night sleep is unstable or broken, that’s often an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it needs to be. In such situations, naps can become part of the problem, not the solution. Employ naps as a short-term solution for short-term problems – the priority must always be a solid and consistent night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
Therefore that daytime sleep shouldn’t be too extended to disrupt your overnight rest, and best shouldn’t take place in the late afternoon (contingent on what time you go to bed at night). How long is sensible? Guidelines are mixed. In one of a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, space agency scientists noted that astronauts experienced improvements of over 50% in vigilance and a 34% boost in performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this included a six-minute long falling asleep phase). “I recommend setting an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – most people fall asleep within 10 minutes,” says a specialist. “You'll find much advice around about the perfect length for sleeping, but that tends to lead individuals to become more worried above all – and the worst thing you can possibly do while aiming to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to nap for a longer period, bypass the 45-60 minute window that encourages sleep grogginess, that disoriented sensation when you awaken. “The science would say it's more effective to have an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” says the sleep scientist. “Three-quarters of an hour is long enough to send you into slow-wave sleep and it is more probable to feel sluggish when you wake up – whereas if you extend it slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be completing a natural sleep cycle and will probably awaken feeling more alert. Though if you nap for 90 minutes, it can influence how you sleep later that night.”
Creating the Right Sleep Space
As for precise methods, advice differs. Certain specialists recommend using comparable habits you’d use to promote restful sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and as much darkness as you can manage. Alternatively, experts propose that one could just doze in a chair with ambient lighting happens to be around – both to discourage post-nap grogginess and to maintain your bedroom as the environment you associate with *real* sleep. “Napping is quite challenging to will,” notes an expert. “Without the urge to sleep, it is more challenging to lie down and essentially command yourself to nod off. There must be some drive there to bring the sleep on in the first place. For me, it's possible to take a nap in broad daylight and awaken on my own without a timer, though, what aids most folks is to anticipate an instance where they feel naturally somewhat sleepy and then simply relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and should your choices are limited – for instance, when aiming to fit in 40 winks on a train or in a work pod – it's acceptable with bringing sleep aids. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I recommend that they avoid becoming accustomed to sleeping in their bed, because they’re going to have|they will
