Hear plenty of performance podcasters, and it’s tempting to convince yourself that a nap is a superpower: more than a sticking plaster after restless night, but a path to a better memory, improved mood and maybe improved athletic performance. Elite footballers do it regularly – along with musicians, mixed martial artists & business leaders. However, if you don't have a special sleep space or a job that allows frequent naps, can there *honestly* enough benefits to a short sleep to merit the hassle? Can you find a surefire technique to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you honestly promise you’ll wake up feeling better, instead of groggy?
Identifying Your Reasons for Napping
“There are three key drivers for taking a nap for many people,” notes a professor of circadian rhythm specialist. “The first is termed make-up sleep, essentially the action you take when you’ve had a lack of sleep the night before. The second is prophylactic napping, which involves pre-empting a sleep deficit ahead, for example if you’re working graveyard shifts. The third reason is “hedonic napping”, which simply comes down to wanting: you have an opportunity to sleep in the daytime, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The first thing to undertake, so, is to think about your nap motivation. “Naps can be truly beneficial when overnight rest gets interrupted because of factors outside your control – for example, when you are caring for an infant, or you’re recovering from sickness or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep expert. “However, if you’re napping as your night sleep seems unreliable or unreliable, that is frequently an indicator your need for sleep is not at the level required. In such situations, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, instead of the fix. Utilize daytime sleep as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the main goal ought to remain a robust and regular overnight rest.”
The Perfect Nap Duration
This implies that daytime sleep shouldn’t be long enough to interfere with your nighttime sleep, and best should not occur post-3 p.m. (based on when you sleep overnight). How long is sensible? Guidelines are mixed. Among a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, experts noted that crew members showed improvements of over 50% in vigilance plus a 34% rise in cognitive performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this included a six-minute long falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest setting an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – the majority doze off in under ten minutes,” says a specialist. “There’s a lot of recommendations regarding the ideal number of time, but that tends to cause people to feel more stressed than anything – and the worst thing one can do when attempting to nod off is to be anxious.”
If you plan to nap for a longer period, avoid the 45 to 60 minute range that encourages sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling when you awaken. “The science would say it is preferable to have an extended nap of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” explains the expert. “45 minutes is sufficient to send you into a deep sleep stage and you’re more likely to feel disoriented when you wake up – whereas if you nap for a little longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be on the end of a sleep cycle and will probably awaken feeling more alert. Though if you're dozing for 90 minutes, it can influence how you sleep later that night.”
Establishing the Perfect Snooze Setting
As for precise methods, suggestions are diverse. A few professionals propose employing the same protocol you use to promote restful sleep: a silent space, a supportive surface and as much darkness as is feasible. Some advise that one could merely snooze on a couch with ambient lighting happens to be around – both to discourage post-nap grogginess and to “protect” your bed as the environment your mind associates with nighttime rest. “Sleep is notoriously difficult to command,” explains an expert. “If you don’t have the urge to sleep, it is more challenging to lie down and practically command yourself to go to sleep. There must be some sleep pressure available to start the process to begin with. For me, it's possible to nap in full light and naturally wake up alarm-free, though, what aids most folks is to wait for a moment that they’re naturally somewhat sleepy and then simply allow sleep to come.”
Experimentation is key, and should options are scarce – for instance, when aiming to fit in some shut-eye on a train or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong to use sleep aids. “In my work with footballers, I suggest that they not rely on napping in bed, as they’re going to have|they will
