Tune into enough performance podcasters, and it’s easy to believe that napping is a superpower: more than a sticking plaster following restless night, but a route to enhanced cognition, better spirits and maybe quicker running times. Elite soccer players are all at it – along with concert pianists, UFC champions and media moguls. However, if you haven’t got a room for napping or a career that permits frequent naps, are there *really* worthwhile perks to a burst of shut-eye to merit the kerfuffle? Can you find a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you really guarantee you will arise feeling better, instead of groggy?
Exploring Your Reasons for Napping
“There are three main reasons for taking a nap in the adult population,” explains a leading circadian rhythm specialist. “One is what we call recovery napping, essentially what happens when you’ve had a lack of sleep the previous night. Another is preparatory napping, which involves preparing for insufficient sleep ahead, for instance during graveyard shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which basically is about the wish: you get an opportunity to doze in the daytime, and it feels nice to indulge.”
The first thing to do, so, is to examine your nap motivation. “Naps can be genuinely useful when nighttime sleep is disturbed due to causes outside your control – for instance, when you are a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing after being ill or strenuous activity,” explains a sleep specialist. “Yet when you take a nap because your sleep at night is unstable or poor, that can be an indicator your need for sleep is not where required. In those cases, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, not the solution. Utilize daytime sleep as a temporary measure to address immediate needs – the focus must always be a solid and consistent overnight rest.”
The Ideal Nap Duration
This means that naps ought not to be long enough to affect your nighttime sleep, and best should not occur in the late afternoon (contingent on the time you sleep overnight). What duration is wise? Recommendations vary. Among a prominent study on the subject, researchers at Nasa found that crew members had a boost of up to 54% in attentiveness and a 34% increase in cognitive performance after a 26-minute nap (technically, this involved a six-minute long falling asleep phase). “I recommend using an alarm for half an hour or less – many individuals fall asleep in under ten minutes,” explains a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of guidance out there concerning the optimal amount for sleeping, but that tends to cause people to feel more anxious than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing one can do when trying to fall asleep is worry about it.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, bypass the 45-60 minute window that induces that sluggish feeling, that foggy state when you wake. “Studies would say it’s better to have an extended nap of 60 to 90 minutes than a medium-length one,” notes the expert. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to put you into slow-wave sleep and you’re more likely to feel disoriented upon awakening – whereas if you take it a little longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to be completing a natural sleep cycle and will probably awaken feeling more alert. However, if you nap for a long period, it will affect how you sleep in the evening.”
Establishing an Ideal Nap Environment
As for precise methods, advice differs. Certain specialists recommend using similar routines you’d use to encourage a good night’s sleep: a peaceful area, a supportive surface and minimal light as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that you should just doze on the sofa with ambient lighting is present – to avoid that groggy feeling and to preserve your bed as the place you associate with nighttime rest. “Sleep is notoriously difficult to will,” notes a sleep coach. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it is more challenging to lie down and basically instruct yourself to go to sleep. You need a natural inclination present to start the process to begin with. For me, it's possible to take a nap during the day and naturally wake up without a timer, however, what assists most folks is to wait for an instance that they’re naturally slightly tired and just gently ease into sleep.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if options are scarce – for example, if you’re trying to fit in some shut-eye while traveling or at the office – it is perfectly fine with bringing sleep aids. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I recommend that they don’t get used to napping in bed, as they’re going to have|they will
