Hear plenty of performance experts, and you'll be easy to think that dozing is a secret weapon: more than a band-aid following poor sleep, but a route to a better memory, a brighter outlook and maybe quicker running times. Professional soccer players swear by it – along with professional piano players, UFC champions and high-profile executives. However, if you haven’t got a room for napping or a job that encourages daytime sleep, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a short sleep to justify the hassle? Can you find a reliable way to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you honestly promise you will arise feeling improved, rather than worse?
Understanding The Drive to Snooze
“There are three primary motivations for daytime sleep for many people,” notes a leading sleep and circadian science researcher. “Firstly, there's termed compensatory napping, that is the action you take when you’ve had insufficient sleep the night before. The second is preparatory napping, which involves anticipating insufficient sleep ahead, for example if you’re working graveyard shifts. The third is called “hedonic napping”, which basically comes down to desire: you get a chance to nap during the day, and it's pleasant to nap.”
The initial step to consider, so, is consider your reason for napping. “Napping can be really helpful when night sleeping is disturbed for reasons outside your control – for instance, for caring for an infant, or recovering after being ill or intense exercise,” explains a sleep specialist. “Yet when you take a nap as your nighttime sleep feels fragile or poor, that is frequently an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not at the level required. In those cases, naps can become part of the issue, not the solution. Employ naps as a short-term solution for temporary issues – the main goal must always be a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”
The Perfect Nap Duration
This implies that naps must not be long enough to interfere with your sleep at night, and ideally should not occur post-3 p.m. (contingent on the time you retire overnight). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. In one of the most-cited studies about napping, researchers at Nasa noted that space travelers had up to a 54% increase in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in task performance after a 26-minute nap (technically, this included an initial six-minute nodding-off period). “My advice is using an alarm for half an hour or less – most people are asleep within 10 minutes,” notes a sleep coach. “You'll find much guidance out there regarding the perfect length of minutes, however, that can cause people to feel more worried than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing one can do when attempting to fall asleep is to stress over it.”
If you plan to nap for a longer period, avoid the 45-60 minute window that encourages sleep grogginess, that disoriented sensation when you awaken. “The science indicates it’s better to take an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes than a medium-length one,” explains the sleep scientist. “45 minutes is long enough to plunge you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish upon awakening – whereas if you nap for a bit longer to 60 or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be completing a full cycle and will probably awaken feeling more refreshed. Though if you're dozing for a long period, it may impact your sleep that night.”
Creating the Perfect Snooze Setting
When it comes to precise methods, suggestions are diverse. Certain specialists propose using comparable habits one would use to foster restful sleep: a quiet room, a cozy bed and minimal light as is feasible. Alternatively, experts propose that you should merely snooze on the sofa with ambient lighting is available – to avoid that groggy feeling and to “protect” your bed as the place your mind associates with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to will,” says a sleep coach. “Without any drowsiness, it becomes harder to lie down and practically command yourself to nod off. You need some drive present to start the process to begin with. For me, it's possible to snooze in full light and awaken on my own without an alarm, but what helps a lot of people is to anticipate a moment when they are naturally feeling a bit drowsy and just gently ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and if you have few options – for instance, if you’re trying to fit in 40 winks on a train or at the office – it is perfectly fine to employ a few tools. “Coaching footballers, I suggest that they avoid becoming accustomed to sleeping in their bed, since they’re going to have|they will
