Hear plenty of performance experts, and you'll be simple to convince yourself that napping is a powerful tool: rather than a band-aid following a bad night’s sleep, but a shortcut to improved recall, improved mood and maybe improved athletic performance. Professional soccer players do it regularly – along with concert pianists, UFC champions and high-profile executives. Yet, when you don't have a room for napping or a job that allows frequent naps, can there *honestly* worthwhile perks to a burst of shut-eye for it to be worth the effort? Can you find a reliable way to nod off promptly? Plus, is it possible to honestly promise you will arise feeling better, instead of groggy?
Identifying Your Reasons for Napping
“Experts note three primary motivations for daytime sleep for many people,” says a professor of circadian rhythm professor. “One is known as make-up sleep, essentially what happens when you’ve had a lack of sleep overnight. The second is pre-emptive sleep, which involves anticipating a sleep deficit ahead, for example when working on night shifts. The third is called “appetitive drive”, which essentially is about wanting: you get an opportunity to nap in the daytime, and it feels nice to do it.”
The initial step to do, therefore, is to think about your nap motivation. “Daytime sleep can be truly beneficial when overnight rest gets interrupted due to causes beyond your control – for instance, for a new parent, or you’re recovering from sickness or intense exercise,” explains a sleep specialist. “However, if you nap as your sleep at night seems unreliable or broken, that can be a sign your sleep drive is not where it should be. In such situations, naps can become part of the problem, rather than the answer. Utilize daytime sleep as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the main goal must always be a solid and consistent overnight rest.”
The Perfect Nap Duration
This means that naps must not be sufficiently lengthy to affect your nighttime sleep, and best shouldn’t take place in the late afternoon (depending on the time you go to bed in the evening). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. Among the most-cited studies about napping, experts discovered that astronauts experienced improvements of over 50% in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in cognitive performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this involved an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “I recommend setting an alarm for half an hour or less – many individuals are asleep within 10 minutes,” notes a sleep expert. “There is plenty of recommendations about the ideal number for sleeping, yet that often make people feel more worried above all – and the worst thing you can possibly do when trying to nod off is worry about it.”
If you plan to take an extended nap, steer clear of the 45-60 minute window that induces that sluggish feeling, that spaced-out feeling when you wake. “Studies would say it is preferable to take an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes than a medium-length one,” explains the expert. “45 minutes is enough time to send you into slow-wave sleep and it is more probable to feel sluggish when you wake up – whereas if you take it a little longer to a full sleep cycle, it's likely you'll to be on the end a full cycle and will probably awaken feeling more alert. But if you're dozing for 90 minutes, it can influence your sleep in the evening.”
Finding the Perfect Snooze Setting
As for specific techniques, suggestions are diverse. Some experts suggest using similar routines you use to foster restful sleep: a peaceful area, a comfortable bed and minimal light as possible. Others suggest that one could simply nap on the sofa with ambient lighting happens to be around – to avoid post-nap grogginess and to preserve your sleeping quarters as the environment you associate with nighttime rest. “Sleep is quite challenging to command,” explains an expert. “If you don’t have the urge to sleep, it becomes harder to lie down and practically command yourself to fall asleep. There’s got to be a natural inclination present to initiate sleep in the first place. I can usually nap in full light and wake up naturally without a timer, though, what aids a lot of people is to anticipate an instance when they are naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently ease into sleep.”
It’s worth experimenting, and if you have few options – such as, if you’re trying to grab a quick nap while traveling or at the office – there’s nothing wrong to use a few tools. “When I’m working with footballers, I recommend that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, because they’re going to have|they will
