Hear a few performance gurus, and it’s tempting to convince yourself that dozing is a superpower: rather than a sticking plaster following poor sleep, but a path to enhanced cognition, better spirits and perhaps quicker running times. Elite footballers are all at it – as do musicians, UFC champions & high-profile executives. But if you lack a special sleep space or a job that encourages frequent naps, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a short sleep to merit the hassle? Is there a dependable method to nod off promptly? And can you really guarantee you will get up feeling better, rather than worse?
Exploring Your Drive to Snooze
“There are three main reasons for daytime sleep for many people,” notes a leading sleep science professor. “The first is known as compensatory napping, essentially what happens when you’ve had poor sleep overnight. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, when you are pre-empting a sleep deficit ahead, for instance during graveyard shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which simply is about desire: you have an opportunity to doze in the daytime, and it's pleasant to nap.”
The initial step to consider, therefore, is consider your reason for napping. “Napping can be genuinely useful when night sleeping gets interrupted due to causes outside your control – for example, when you are a new parent, or recovering from illness or intense exercise,” states a sleep physiologist. “But if you nap because your night sleep seems unreliable or poor, that can be a sign your need for sleep is not as strong as required. In such situations, naps can become part of the problem, rather than the answer. Utilize daytime sleep for brief periods to address immediate needs – the main goal ought to remain a robust and regular sleep at night.”
The Ideal Nap Duration
Therefore that naps ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your sleep at night, and best should not occur in the late afternoon (based on what time you sleep in the evening). How long is sensible? Advice differs. In one of a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, experts found that astronauts had up to a 54% increase in alertness and a 34% increase in performance following a nap of 26 minutes (to be precise, this counted a six-minute sleep onset time). “My advice is setting a timer for 20-30 minutes – the majority are asleep quickly,” notes a specialist. “There is plenty of advice around about the optimal amount for sleeping, however, that can make people feel more stressed above all – and the most counterproductive thing one can do when trying to fall asleep is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to nap for a longer period, steer clear of the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep inertia, that spaced-out feeling when you wake. “Research would say it’s better to take an extended nap of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” explains the professor. “Three-quarters of an hour is enough time to put you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel groggy upon awakening – while if you nap for a little longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you’re likely to be completing a full cycle and should get up feeling more alert. But if you're dozing for 90 minutes, it will affect your sleep later that night.”
Creating the Perfect Nap Environment
Regarding precise methods, advice differs. Certain specialists suggest employing similar routines you use to encourage a good night’s sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and minimal light as is feasible. Alternatively, experts propose that you should simply nap on a couch with ambient lighting happens to be around – both to discourage sleep inertia and to maintain your sleeping quarters as the environment your mind associates with *real* sleep. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to will,” says an expert. “Lacking the urge to sleep, it is tougher to get comfortable and essentially command yourself to nod off. There must be some sleep pressure there to initiate sleep initially. I can usually snooze in broad daylight and awaken on my own without a timer, however, what assists many individuals is to look for an instance where they feel naturally somewhat sleepy and then simply ease into sleep.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if your choices are limited – for instance, when aiming to squeeze in 40 winks while traveling or at the office – it is perfectly fine with bringing sleep aids. “Coaching footballers, I suggest that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
