The Secret to a Flawless Snooze: Timing, Where & for How Long?
Tune into enough self-improvement podcasters, and you'll be tempting to convince yourself that napping is a superpower: more than a sticking plaster following a bad night’s sleep, but a shortcut towards a better memory, a brighter outlook and perhaps a faster 5k run time. Elite footballers are all at it – and so are concert pianists, mixed martial artists and business leaders. But if you haven’t got a room for napping or a career that encourages regular snoozing, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a short sleep to merit the kerfuffle? Is there a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you really guarantee you will get up feeling refreshed, instead of groggy?
Exploring The Reasons for Napping
“We can identify three main reasons for daytime sleep for many people,” explains a professor of sleep science specialist. “Firstly, there's termed recovery napping, essentially the action you take after experiencing poor sleep the night before. The second is pre-emptive sleep, when you are anticipating sleep loss ahead, for example if you’re working on night shifts. Finally, there's “appetitive drive”, which essentially boils down to the wish: you get an opportunity to nap in the daytime, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The first thing to undertake, then, is to think about your nap motivation. “Naps can be really helpful when night sleeping is disturbed due to causes beyond your control – for instance, for caring for an infant, or if you are healing from sickness or heavy physical exertion,” explains a sleep expert. “But if you’re napping because your nighttime sleep feels fragile or unreliable, that is frequently an indicator your sleep drive is not where required. In such situations, naps can become part of the issue, rather than the answer. Employ naps as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the priority ought to remain a solid and consistent sleep at night.”
The Ideal Nap Length
This implies that napping shouldn’t be sufficiently lengthy to affect your sleep at night, and ideally shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (depending on the time you go to bed in the evening). What duration is wise? Advice differs. Among a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, space agency scientists noted that space travelers showed a boost of up to 54% in vigilance and a 34% increase in task performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this counted a six-minute nodding-off period). “My advice is setting an alarm for half an hour or less – the majority doze off within 10 minutes,” explains a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of guidance out there regarding the ideal number of minutes, but that tends to lead individuals to become more stressed than anything else – and the worst thing one can do when attempting to nod off is worry about it.”
If you’re going to sleep for longer, avoid the period between 45 and 60 minutes that induces sleep inertia, that disoriented sensation upon waking. “The science indicates it is preferable to take a lengthier snooze of 60 to 90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” explains the expert. “45 minutes is sufficient to plunge you into a deep sleep stage making it more likely to feel disoriented when you get up – however, if you extend it slightly longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to finish a full cycle and are likely to wake up feeling more refreshed. However, if you’re sleeping for an hour and a half, it may impact your sleep in the evening.”
Creating an Ideal Sleep Space
When it comes to specific techniques, recommendations vary. A few professionals suggest adopting comparable habits one would use to encourage restful sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and maximum darkness as possible. Others suggest that it's fine to merely snooze on a couch in whatever light is available – both to discourage post-nap grogginess and to maintain your bed as the environment your mind associates with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to command,” says a sleep coach. “Lacking any drowsiness, it becomes harder to get comfortable and practically instruct yourself to go to sleep. There must be a natural inclination there to start the process to begin with. Personally, I can often snooze during the day and naturally wake up alarm-free, but what helps many individuals is to look for an instance where they feel naturally slightly tired and calmly relax into it.”
Experimentation is key, and if your choices are limited – such as, when aiming to grab a quick nap during a commute or in a soundproof office pod – there’s nothing wrong to employ a few tools. “In my work with professional sportspeople, I recommend that they not rely on their own bed for naps, as they’re going to have|they will
