Hear plenty of performance podcasters, and it’s tempting to believe that a nap is a secret weapon: more than a band-aid following poor sleep, but a route to enhanced cognition, better spirits and perhaps improved athletic performance. Professional soccer players are all at it – as do professional piano players, mixed martial artists & business leaders. However, if you haven’t got a dedicated nap-room or employment that permits regular snoozing, are there *really* enough benefits to a quick nap for it to be worth the effort? Does there exist a surefire technique to fall asleep fast? Plus, is it possible to really guarantee you will get up feeling refreshed, rather than worse?
Understanding The Drive to Snooze
“There are three main reasons for taking a nap among most adults,” notes an expert circadian rhythm specialist. “Firstly, there's known as recovery napping, which is what you do when you’ve had a lack of sleep the previous night. Another is preparatory napping, which involves anticipating sleep loss ahead, for instance when working graveyard shifts. The third is called “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially boils down to desire: you have an opportunity to doze in the afternoon, and it feels nice to nap.”
The primary task to consider, therefore, is to examine why you want to nap. “Naps can be truly beneficial when night sleeping is being disrupted because of factors beyond your control – for instance, if you’re a new parent, or you’re recovering from illness or intense exercise,” explains a sleep specialist. “Yet when you take a nap since your sleep at night is unstable or broken, that’s often an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as it needs to be. In those cases, napping can become part of the issue, not the solution. Use napping for brief periods for temporary issues – the main goal should still be a robust and regular night’s sleep.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
This implies that napping must not be long enough to interfere with your sleep at night, and ideally shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (based on what time you retire at night). What's a reasonable length? Recommendations vary. Among a prominent study about napping, experts found that astronauts showed up to a 54% increase in vigilance and a 34% boost in cognitive performance post a 26-minute snooze (technically, this involved an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting a timer for half an hour or less – most people fall asleep quickly,” explains a sleep coach. “There is plenty of recommendations about the optimal amount for sleeping, yet that often cause people to feel more worried than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing you can do when attempting to get to sleep is worry about it.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, bypass the period between 45 and 60 minutes that promotes sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “The science suggests it's more effective to have a longer nap of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” says the expert. “Three-quarters of an hour is enough time to put you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish when you wake up – whereas if you nap for a little longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to be completing a natural sleep cycle and will probably awaken feeling more refreshed. However, if you’re sleeping for 90 minutes, it can influence the quality of your sleep that night.”
Establishing an Ideal Nap Environment
When it comes to exact methodologies, suggestions are diverse. A few professionals recommend using the same protocol one would use to encourage quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and as much darkness as is feasible. Alternatively, experts propose that one could merely snooze in a chair in whatever light is present – to avoid sleep inertia and to “protect” your bedroom as the space you associate with *real* sleep. “Sleep is notoriously difficult to command,” says an expert. “Lacking the urge to sleep, it is tougher to get comfortable and basically command yourself to fall asleep. You need some sleep pressure available to bring the sleep on initially. I can usually take a nap during the day and awaken on my own alarm-free, but what helps most folks is to look for a time when they are naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and if you have few options – for instance, if you’re trying to grab some shut-eye during a commute or in a soundproof office pod – there’s nothing wrong to use a few tools. “When I’m working with footballers, I suggest that they avoid becoming accustomed to their own bed for naps, because they’re going to have|they will
