Listen to plenty of performance gurus, and it’s simple to believe that a nap is a powerful tool: not just a sticking plaster following poor sleep, but a path to enhanced cognition, improved mood and possibly a faster 5k run time. Elite athletes swear by it – along with concert pianists, UFC champions and business leaders. However, if you haven’t got a room for napping or employment that allows daytime sleep, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a short sleep for it to be worth the hassle? Can you find a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you will get up feeling improved, not worse?
Identifying The Nap Motivation
“We can identify three key drivers for napping for many people,” notes a professor of sleep science specialist. “One is termed compensatory napping, which is what happens when you’ve had poor sleep the night before. The second is pre-emptive sleep, when you are pre-empting insufficient sleep ahead, for example during graveyard shifts. The third is called “pleasure-based sleep”, which basically comes down to wanting: you get a moment to sleep during the day, and it feels nice to indulge.”
The first thing to consider, therefore, is consider your reason for napping. “Naps can be truly beneficial when nighttime sleep gets interrupted because of factors you cannot change – for instance, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing from sickness or strenuous activity,” says a sleep expert. “Yet when you take a nap since your sleep at night feels fragile or broken, that can be a sign your sleep drive is not where it needs to be. In those cases, naps can become part of the issue, instead of the fix. Employ naps as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the main goal must always be a solid and consistent sleep at night.”
The Ideal Nap Length
This means that daytime sleep must not be too extended to interfere with your nighttime sleep, and best shouldn’t take place post-3 p.m. (based on when you go to bed at night). What's a reasonable length? Guidelines are mixed. From a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, space agency scientists noted that crew members experienced up to a 54% increase in alertness plus a 34% rise in cognitive performance following a nap of 26 minutes (in detail, this counted an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting a timer for 20 to 30 minutes – most people doze off within 10 minutes,” says a sleep coach. “You'll find much guidance out there about the ideal number of minutes, but that tends to lead individuals to become more anxious than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing you can possibly do while aiming to get to sleep is worry about it.”
If you’re going to nap for a longer period, steer clear of the 45-60 minute window that induces sleep inertia, that spaced-out feeling when you wake. “Research suggests it's more effective to opt for a longer nap lasting 60-90 minutes than a medium-length one,” says the professor. “Three-quarters of an hour is sufficient to plunge you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel disoriented when you get up – however, if you take it a bit longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to be completing of a sleep cycle and will probably awaken feeling more rejuvenated. However, if you’re sleeping for an hour and a half, it may impact the quality of your sleep later that night.”
Creating an Ideal Sleep Space
As for exact methodologies, suggestions are diverse. Certain specialists suggest adopting similar routines one would use to promote a good night’s sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and minimal light as is feasible. Alternatively, experts propose that you should simply nap in a chair in whatever light is available – to avoid post-nap grogginess and to preserve your bed as the space you associate with *real* sleep. “Sleep is something really tricky to force,” explains a specialist. “Without the urge to sleep, it is more challenging to recline and practically tell yourself to nod off. You need some drive present to initiate sleep in the first place. Personally, I can often nap during the day and naturally wake up without an alarm, however, what assists a lot of people is to anticipate an instance where they feel naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and if you have few options – for example, if you’re trying to squeeze in 40 winks during a commute or at the office – it is perfectly fine to use sleep aids. “Coaching footballers, I advise that they not rely on their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
