Hear plenty of self-improvement experts, making it tempting to think that dozing is a secret weapon: more than a sticking plaster after restless night, but a route to enhanced cognition, improved mood and perhaps improved athletic performance. Elite soccer players are all at it – as do professional piano players, fighters and media moguls. Yet, when you lack a special sleep space or a job that encourages regular snoozing, are there *really* worthwhile perks to a short sleep to justify the effort? Can you find a reliable way to fall asleep fast? Furthermore, can you honestly promise you will arise feeling improved, rather than worse?
Understanding Your Nap Motivation
“Experts note three key drivers for taking a nap for many people,” explains a leading circadian rhythm researcher. “One is known as compensatory napping, essentially what you do after experiencing a lack of sleep overnight. The second is preparatory napping, which involves preparing for insufficient sleep ahead, for instance if you’re working on night shifts. The third reason is “appetitive drive”, which essentially boils down to the wish: you get an opportunity to nap during the day, and it's enjoyable to do it.”
The initial step to consider, then, is consider your nap motivation. “Naps can be really helpful when nighttime sleep is being disrupted for reasons outside your control – such as, for caring for an infant, or if you are healing from sickness or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you take a nap since your sleep at night feels fragile or poor, that can be a signal your need for sleep is not where required. In those cases, naps can become part of the issue, rather than the answer. Utilize daytime sleep as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the main goal must always be a robust and regular night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
This implies that daytime sleep must not be long enough to affect your overnight rest, and best shouldn’t take place in the late afternoon (based on when you go to bed overnight). What duration is wise? Recommendations vary. Among a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, researchers at Nasa discovered that astronauts had improvements of over 50% in alertness and a 34% increase in performance following a nap of 26 minutes (in detail, this counted a six-minute long sleep onset time). “I recommend setting an alarm for 20-30 minutes – the majority fall asleep quickly,” says a sleep expert. “You'll find much recommendations about the perfect length for sleeping, however, that can cause people to feel more worried than anything else – and the least helpful action you can do when trying to fall asleep is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to sleep for longer, bypass the period between 45 and 60 minutes that induces sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling when you awaken. “Research suggests it is preferable to have an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes compared to a medium-length nap,” explains the expert. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to plunge you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel sluggish when you wake up – whereas if you extend it a little longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you will probably to finish a full cycle and should get up feeling more rejuvenated. But if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it will affect how you sleep that night.”
Establishing an Ideal Nap Environment
As for specific techniques, suggestions are diverse. Some experts propose employing comparable habits you’d use to encourage restful sleep: a quiet room, a supportive surface and minimal light as is feasible. Alternatively, experts propose that it's fine to simply nap in a chair in the existing light is available – to prevent sleep inertia and to “protect” your sleeping quarters as the place you associate with *real* sleep. “Sleep is notoriously difficult to will,” says an expert. “Without any sleepiness, it becomes harder to get comfortable and essentially instruct yourself to fall asleep. You need some drive present to start the process to begin with. For me, it's possible to nap in full light and wake up naturally without a timer, however, what assists a lot of people is to wait for an instance where they feel naturally feeling a bit drowsy and calmly allow sleep to come.”
It’s worth experimenting, and should options are scarce – for instance, if attempting to fit in a quick nap during a commute or in a work pod – it is perfectly fine with bringing sleep aids. “In my work with footballers, I recommend that they not rely on sleeping in their bed, as they’re going to have|they will