The Secret for a Perfect Snooze: Timing, Location & for How Long?
Tune into plenty of productivity gurus, making it easy to convince yourself that dozing is a superpower: not just a quick fix after a bad night’s sleep, but a path to improved recall, improved mood and possibly improved athletic performance. Professional soccer players do it regularly – as do concert pianists, mixed martial artists and media moguls. But if you lack a room for napping or employment that permits frequent naps, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a quick nap for it to be worth the effort? Can you find a surefire technique to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you honestly promise you’ll wake up feeling improved, instead of groggy?
Understanding The Nap Motivation
“We can identify three key drivers for napping among most adults,” notes an expert circadian rhythm professor. “One is termed compensatory napping, that is the action you take after experiencing poor sleep the night before. The second is pre-emptive sleep, which involves preparing for insufficient sleep ahead, such as when working overnight shifts. Finally, there's “hedonic napping”, which basically boils down to wanting: there is a moment to doze during the day, and it's pleasant to do it.”
The primary task to do, then, is to examine your reason for napping. “Napping can be really helpful when night sleeping is disturbed due to causes beyond your control – for instance, for a new parent, or if you are healing from illness or strenuous activity,” states a sleep physiologist. “But if you’re napping since your nighttime sleep seems unreliable or poor, that can be a sign your body's sleep pressure is not where it should be. In those cases, naps can become a contributing factor, instead of the fix. Employ naps as a short-term solution for short-term problems – the main goal must always be a solid and consistent sleep at night.”
The Ideal Nap Duration
This means that daytime sleep must not be long enough to affect your nighttime sleep, and ideally shouldn’t take place in the late afternoon (based on the time you go to bed at night). What's a reasonable length? Advice differs. In one of the most-cited studies about napping, experts noted that astronauts showed a boost of up to 54% in vigilance and a 34% increase in performance post a 26-minute snooze (to be precise, this included an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is using an alarm for 20-30 minutes – the majority are asleep quickly,” notes a sleep expert. “There is plenty of advice around about the ideal number of minutes, but that tends to make people feel more anxious than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing you can possibly do when trying to nod off is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to sleep for longer, avoid the 45 to 60 minute range that induces that sluggish feeling, that foggy state when you awaken. “The science suggests it is preferable to take a longer nap lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” says the expert. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to send you into a deep sleep stage and it is more probable to feel groggy when you wake up – however, if you extend it slightly longer to a full sleep cycle, you will probably to be on the end of a sleep cycle and are likely to wake up feeling more alert. However, if you’re sleeping for an hour and a half, it will affect how you sleep that night.”
Creating the Right Snooze Setting
When it comes to exact methodologies, advice differs. Some experts suggest adopting similar routines one would use to foster a good night’s sleep: a peaceful area, a cozy bed and as much darkness as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that it's fine to merely snooze on a couch in whatever light is present – to prevent sleep inertia and to maintain your bedroom as the place your brain links with *real* sleep. “Sleep is notoriously difficult to command,” notes an expert. “If you don’t have any drowsiness, it becomes harder to recline and basically command yourself to go to sleep. You need a natural inclination present to start the process to begin with. I can usually snooze in broad daylight and naturally wake up without a timer, however, what assists many individuals is to wait for a time that they’re naturally slightly tired and then simply ease into sleep.”
It’s worth experimenting, and if you have few options – for instance, if attempting to squeeze in a quick nap on a train or at the office – it is perfectly fine to employ some accessories. “Coaching elite athletes, I recommend that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, since they’re going to have|they will
