Listen to plenty of productivity experts, and you'll be easy to think that dozing is a secret weapon: not just a band-aid following restless night, but a shortcut to enhanced cognition, better spirits and maybe quicker running times. Professional footballers do it regularly – as do musicians, UFC champions and high-profile executives. However, if you lack a special sleep space or a job that allows daytime sleep, is it *truly* enough benefits to a burst of shut-eye for it to be worth the effort? Does there exist a dependable method to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you will arise feeling improved, not worse?
Exploring Your Drive to Snooze
“Experts note three primary motivations for taking a nap among most adults,” notes an expert sleep and circadian science specialist. “The first is known as make-up sleep, which is what happens after experiencing a lack of sleep overnight. Another is prophylactic napping, which involves pre-empting sleep loss in the future, such as if you’re working on night shifts. The third reason is “hedonic napping”, which essentially comes down to desire: you get a chance to sleep in the daytime, and it's enjoyable to indulge.”
The primary task to consider, therefore, is to think about your nap motivation. “Daytime sleep can be genuinely useful when night sleeping gets interrupted due to causes outside your control – for example, if you’re caring for an infant, or recovering from illness or strenuous activity,” explains a sleep physiologist. “However, if you take a nap as your night sleep is unstable or poor, that’s often a signal your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as required. In those cases, napping can become part of the issue, instead of the fix. Use napping as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the priority must always be a solid and consistent night’s sleep.”
The Optimal Snooze Time
Therefore that naps ought not to be too extended to interfere with your nighttime sleep, and best shouldn’t take place post-3 p.m. (contingent on the time you retire overnight). What's a reasonable length? Advice differs. In one of the most referenced research on the subject, researchers at Nasa found that astronauts experienced a boost of up to 54% in alertness and a 34% increase in cognitive performance post a 26-minute snooze (in detail, this included a six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting an alarm for 20-30 minutes – most people are asleep quickly,” notes a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of recommendations about the perfect length for sleeping, yet that often cause people to feel more worried than anything – and the worst thing you can possibly do when attempting to nod off is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to sleep for longer, avoid the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep inertia, that disoriented sensation when you wake. “Research indicates it is preferable to have a longer nap of 60 to 90 minutes than a medium-length one,” says the sleep scientist. “Three-quarters of an hour is enough time to put you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel disoriented upon awakening – while if you take it slightly longer to 60 or 90 minutes, you will probably to be on the end of a sleep cycle and will probably awaken feeling more alert. But if you're dozing for a long period, it may impact the quality of your sleep later that night.”
Establishing the Perfect Snooze Setting
As for precise methods, recommendations vary. Certain specialists propose employing similar routines you use to encourage quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and as much darkness as you can manage. Others suggest that one could merely snooze in a chair with ambient lighting is available – both to discourage sleep inertia and to preserve your sleeping quarters as the space your mind associates with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is quite challenging to force,” says a specialist. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it becomes harder to lie down and practically command yourself to go to sleep. There must be some drive available to start the process to begin with. Personally, I can often nap during the day and naturally wake up alarm-free, however, what assists a lot of people is to look for an instance that they’re naturally slightly tired and just gently allow sleep to come.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and should options are scarce – for instance, when aiming to fit in some shut-eye while traveling or in a work pod – it is perfectly fine to use a few tools. “When I’m working with footballers, I recommend that they not rely on napping in bed, since they’re going to have|they will
