The Formula for an Ideal Snooze: When, Location & Duration?

Tune into enough self-improvement podcasters, and you'll be simple to convince yourself that napping is a superpower: not just a band-aid after poor sleep, but a path to improved recall, better spirits and perhaps improved athletic performance. Premier League footballers swear by it – along with professional piano players, fighters and business leaders. Yet, when you lack a dedicated nap-room or employment that encourages daytime sleep, are there *really* enough benefits to a burst of shut-eye to justify the hassle? Is there a dependable method to fall asleep fast? Furthermore, can you truly ensure you will get up feeling improved, instead of groggy?

Exploring The Reasons for Napping

“We can identify three primary motivations for taking a nap in the adult population,” notes a leading sleep science specialist. “One is known as make-up sleep, which is the action you take following insufficient sleep the night before. Another is preparatory napping, when you are pre-empting a sleep deficit coming up, for instance when working overnight shifts. Finally, there's “pleasure-based sleep”, which simply is about desire: you have a moment to nap in the daytime, and it's pleasant to do it.”

The initial step to consider, then, is to think about your reason for napping. “Naps can be genuinely useful when overnight rest is being disrupted for reasons outside your control – for instance, for caring for an infant, or if you are healing from illness or strenuous activity,” explains a sleep physiologist. “Yet when you nap since your sleep at night is unstable or broken, that can be a sign your need for sleep is not as strong as required. In those cases, daytime sleep can turn into a contributing factor, instead of the fix. Utilize daytime sleep as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the priority must always be a robust and regular sleep at night.”

The Optimal Nap Duration

This means that napping ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to affect your nighttime sleep, and best are not recommended post-3 p.m. (depending on what time you go to bed overnight). How long is sensible? Advice differs. Among a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, researchers at Nasa noted that astronauts showed improvements of over 50% in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in task performance following a nap of 26 minutes (in detail, this involved a six-minute long sleep onset time). “I’d suggest setting a timer for 20 to 30 minutes – most people are asleep quickly,” explains a sleep expert. “You'll find much guidance out there regarding the perfect length of minutes, yet that often cause people to feel more anxious than anything else – and the worst thing you can possibly do when trying to get to sleep is to be anxious.”

Should you decide to nap for a longer period, bypass the 45-60 minute window that induces that sluggish feeling, that disoriented sensation upon waking. “Studies would say it is preferable to have a longer nap lasting 60-90 minutes than a medium-length one,” explains the professor. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to plunge you into slow-wave sleep and it is more probable to feel sluggish when you get up – whereas if you extend it a bit longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be completing a natural sleep cycle and will probably wake up feeling more alert. However, if you're dozing for a long period, it can influence the quality of your sleep later that night.”

Creating the Right Sleep Space

When it comes to precise methods, advice differs. Some experts propose employing comparable habits one would use to foster quality nighttime sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and minimal light as is feasible. Others suggest that you should simply nap on the sofa with ambient lighting is present – both to discourage post-nap grogginess and to maintain your sleeping quarters as the environment you associate with proper sleep. “Napping is quite challenging to will,” explains a specialist. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it becomes harder to lie down and basically tell yourself to nod off. There must be some sleep pressure available to bring the sleep on initially. For me, it's possible to nap during the day and wake up naturally without an alarm, but what helps most folks is to look for a time when they are naturally feeling a bit drowsy and calmly relax into it.”

Trying different approaches is valuable, and if options are scarce – such as, when aiming to squeeze in some shut-eye during a commute or in a work pod – it's acceptable to employ sleep aids. “When I’m working with elite athletes, I advise that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, as they’re going to have|they will