Hear plenty of self-improvement podcasters, and you'll be easy to believe that napping is a secret weapon: more than a quick fix following poor sleep, but a route towards a better memory, improved mood and perhaps quicker running times. Premier League soccer players are all at it – as do professional piano players, mixed martial artists and media moguls. Yet, when you haven’t got a special sleep space or a career that permits regular snoozing, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye to justify the effort? Can you find a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? Plus, is it possible to really guarantee you will get up feeling refreshed, not worse?
Understanding Your Reasons for Napping
“We can identify three primary motivations for taking a nap for many people,” explains a professor of sleep science researcher. “The first is termed compensatory napping, essentially the action you take when you’ve had insufficient sleep overnight. The second is prophylactic napping, where you are pre-empting sleep loss coming up, for instance if you’re working overnight shifts. Finally, there's “pleasure-based sleep”, which basically comes down to the wish: there is a moment to sleep in the daytime, and it's pleasant to do it.”
The initial step to do, so, is consider why you want to nap. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when overnight rest gets interrupted because of factors beyond your control – for example, if you’re a new parent, or you’re recovering from illness or heavy physical exertion,” states a sleep specialist. “But if you take a nap as your night sleep seems unreliable or poor, that’s often an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not where it needs to be. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, rather than the answer. Use napping as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the focus ought to remain a robust and regular night’s sleep.”
The Perfect Snooze Time
This means that napping shouldn’t be long enough to interfere with your sleep at night, and best are not recommended in the late afternoon (depending on when you go to bed overnight). How long is sensible? Guidelines are mixed. From the most referenced research about napping, space agency scientists discovered that astronauts had improvements of over 50% in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in task performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this counted a six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is using an alarm for 20-30 minutes – the majority fall asleep within 10 minutes,” notes a sleep coach. “You'll find much guidance out there about the ideal number for sleeping, but that tends to cause people to feel more worried than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing you can do while aiming to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
If you’re going to sleep for longer, steer clear of the 45 to 60 minute range that encourages that sluggish feeling, that foggy state when you awaken. “The science indicates it’s better to take an extended nap of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” says the professor. “Three-quarters of an hour is long enough to put you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel groggy when you get up – while if you nap for a bit longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be on the end of a sleep cycle and will probably get up feeling more alert. However, if you nap for a long period, it can influence your sleep in the evening.”
Establishing the Perfect Sleep Space
When it comes to precise methods, advice differs. Some experts recommend employing the same protocol one would use to encourage quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and maximum darkness as is feasible. Some advise that one could merely snooze in a chair in whatever light happens to be around – to avoid post-nap grogginess and to maintain your sleeping quarters as the space your brain links with nighttime rest. “Sleep is quite challenging to will,” explains a sleep coach. “Without any sleepiness, it becomes harder to lie down and practically command yourself to nod off. There’s got to be a natural inclination present to initiate sleep to begin with. I can usually snooze in full light and naturally wake up alarm-free, but what helps many individuals is to wait for an instance where they feel naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently relax into it.”
Experimentation is key, and when options are scarce – such as, when aiming to grab 40 winks during a commute or at the office – there’s nothing wrong with bringing a few tools. “In my work with footballers, I suggest that they avoid becoming accustomed to napping in bed, as they’re going to have|they will
