The Formula to an Ideal Snooze: Timing, Location & Duration?
Tune into a few self-improvement gurus, and it’s easy to believe that dozing is a superpower: not just a quick fix after poor sleep, but a shortcut towards improved recall, improved mood and maybe quicker running times. Elite athletes do it regularly – along with musicians, fighters & high-profile executives. But if you haven’t got a special sleep space or a job that permits daytime sleep, are there *really* enough benefits to a short sleep for it to be worth the kerfuffle? Is there a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? Plus, is it possible to really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling better, instead of groggy?
Identifying The Drive to Snooze
“We can identify three primary motivations for taking a nap in the adult population,” says a professor of circadian rhythm specialist. “One is known as compensatory napping, essentially what you do when you’ve had a lack of sleep overnight. Another is prophylactic napping, where you are pre-empting insufficient sleep in the future, for example when working overnight shifts. Finally, there's “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially comes down to wanting: you have an opportunity to nap in the daytime, and it's enjoyable to nap.”
The primary task to consider, then, is consider why you want to nap. “Daytime sleep can be truly beneficial when overnight rest gets interrupted because of factors beyond your control – for instance, for caring for an infant, or recovering after being ill or heavy physical exertion,” says a sleep expert. “However, if you nap since your nighttime sleep feels fragile or unreliable, that’s often a signal your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as required. In those cases, naps can become part of the issue, instead of the fix. Utilize daytime sleep for brief periods to address immediate needs – the priority must always be a robust and regular overnight rest.”
The Perfect Snooze Time
This implies that napping must not be sufficiently lengthy to affect your sleep at night, and preferably shouldn’t take place in the late afternoon (based on the time you go to bed at night). How long is sensible? Guidelines are mixed. Among the most-cited studies about napping, researchers at Nasa discovered that crew members showed improvements of over 50% in alertness and a 34% boost in performance following a nap of 26 minutes (to be precise, this involved a six-minute long sleep onset time). “I’d suggest setting an alarm for 20 to 30 minutes – the majority are asleep in under ten minutes,” explains a specialist. “There’s a lot of guidance out there about the perfect length of time, yet that often make people feel more stressed than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing you can possibly do when trying to fall asleep is worry about it.”
If you plan to take an extended nap, steer clear of the 45-60 minute window that promotes that sluggish feeling, that disoriented sensation when you wake. “Studies would say it's more effective to take a lengthier snooze of one to one and a half hours than a medium-length one,” explains the expert. “Forty-five minutes is enough time to send you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel sluggish when you wake up – however, if you take it slightly longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you will probably to be on the end a full cycle and will probably awaken feeling more alert. But if you nap for a long period, it may impact the quality of your sleep later that night.”
Creating an Ideal Sleep Space
As for precise methods, advice differs. A few professionals propose using the same protocol you use to encourage restful sleep: a peaceful area, a supportive surface and minimal light as you can manage. Some advise that you should simply nap on the sofa in whatever light is available – to avoid that groggy feeling and to maintain your sleeping quarters as the place your brain links with proper sleep. “Napping is notoriously difficult to force,” says an expert. “Lacking the urge to sleep, it is more challenging to get comfortable and basically instruct yourself to go to sleep. You need some sleep pressure there to initiate sleep to begin with. For me, it's possible to nap during the day and naturally wake up alarm-free, though, what aids a lot of people is to wait for an instance that they’re naturally feeling a bit drowsy and just gently ease into sleep.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and should your choices are limited – for instance, if you’re trying to grab 40 winks on a train or at the office – there’s nothing wrong with bringing a few tools. “In my work with professional sportspeople, I advise that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, because they’re going to have|they will
