Listen to plenty of performance podcasters, making it easy to believe that dozing is a superpower: more than a quick fix following restless night, but a shortcut towards improved recall, better spirits and perhaps improved athletic performance. Professional soccer players do it regularly – as do professional piano players, UFC champions and high-profile executives. Yet, when you lack a dedicated nap-room or employment that allows frequent naps, are there *really* enough benefits to a short sleep to merit the kerfuffle? Is there a reliable way to fall asleep fast? And can you honestly promise you will get up feeling better, rather than worse?
Identifying The Drive to Snooze
“We can identify three key drivers for napping for many people,” explains an expert sleep and circadian science researcher. “Firstly, there's termed recovery napping, essentially the action you take after experiencing a lack of sleep overnight. The second is preparatory napping, when you are pre-empting insufficient sleep in the future, for instance if you’re working on night shifts. The third reason is “appetitive drive”, which basically boils down to desire: there is a moment to doze during the day, and it's pleasant to indulge.”
The first thing to undertake, then, is consider why you want to nap. “Naps can be genuinely useful when overnight rest is being disrupted due to causes beyond your control – for instance, if you’re a new parent, or if you are healing from illness or intense exercise,” states a sleep expert. “But if you’re napping since your night sleep feels fragile or unreliable, that can be a signal your sleep drive is not as strong as it should be. In those cases, napping can become part of the problem, rather than the answer. Use napping as a temporary measure to address immediate needs – the main goal ought to remain a solid and consistent sleep at night.”
The Optimal Nap Length
This means that naps shouldn’t be too extended to affect your sleep at night, and ideally are not recommended after about 3pm (based on the time you sleep overnight). What's a reasonable length? Guidelines are mixed. From the most-cited studies about napping, experts discovered that crew members experienced up to a 54% increase in vigilance and a 34% increase in cognitive performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this involved a six-minute long nodding-off period). “I’d suggest using an alarm for 20-30 minutes – most people fall asleep within 10 minutes,” explains a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of advice around regarding the perfect length of time, however, that can cause people to feel more worried than anything else – and the worst thing you can do when attempting to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
Should you decide to nap for a longer period, steer clear of the 45-60 minute window that encourages sleep inertia, that spaced-out feeling upon waking. “Studies suggests it’s better to have an extended nap of 60 to 90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” explains the sleep scientist. “Three-quarters of an hour is long enough to plunge you into slow-wave sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish when you wake up – however, if you take it slightly longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you’re likely to be on the end a full cycle and will probably wake up feeling more rejuvenated. Though if you're dozing for a long period, it will affect the quality of your sleep in the evening.”
Creating the Perfect Nap Environment
Regarding precise methods, recommendations vary. A few professionals propose using comparable habits you’d use to encourage restful sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and as much darkness as possible. Some advise that one could just doze in a chair in whatever light happens to be around – both to discourage sleep inertia and to “protect” your bed as the environment your brain links with proper sleep. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to force,” says a sleep coach. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it is more challenging to recline and essentially instruct yourself to fall asleep. There must be a natural inclination present to start the process in the first place. For me, it's possible to take a nap in broad daylight and awaken on my own alarm-free, though, what aids most folks is to wait for a moment where they feel naturally slightly tired and then simply relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if your choices are limited – for example, if attempting to grab 40 winks on a train or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong with bringing a few tools. “In my work with footballers, I advise that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, as they’re going to have|they will
