The Formula for an Ideal Kip: Timing, Location and Duration?
Tune into a few productivity gurus, and it’s simple to convince yourself that a nap is a secret weapon: rather than a sticking plaster following a bad night’s sleep, but a shortcut towards improved recall, better spirits and possibly quicker running times. Premier League soccer players are all at it – and so are concert pianists, fighters & high-profile executives. But if you don't have a dedicated nap-room or a job that encourages daytime sleep, are there *really* sufficient advantages to a short sleep for it to be worth the kerfuffle? Does there exist a surefire technique to fall asleep fast? Plus, is it possible to honestly promise you will arise feeling better, not worse?
Identifying The Drive to Snooze
“There are three primary motivations for daytime sleep for many people,” explains a professor of sleep science specialist. “Firstly, there's what we call compensatory napping, that is what you do following poor sleep overnight. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, which involves pre-empting sleep loss coming up, for example when working on night shifts. The third is called “appetitive drive”, which simply is about desire: you have an opportunity to doze in the daytime, and it's pleasant to do it.”
The first thing to undertake, then, is consider your reason for napping. “Naps can be genuinely useful when overnight rest is disturbed due to causes beyond your control – for instance, when you are a new parent, or if you are healing after being ill or intense exercise,” explains a sleep specialist. “Yet when you take a nap as your sleep at night seems unreliable or poor, that can be an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it should be. In those cases, naps can become part of the issue, rather than the answer. Use napping for brief periods to address immediate needs – the priority ought to remain a solid and consistent sleep at night.”
The Ideal Snooze Time
Therefore that naps must not be long enough to interfere with your overnight rest, and preferably shouldn’t take place in the late afternoon (based on when you go to bed at night). What's a reasonable length? Advice differs. From a prominent study on the subject, experts found that crew members experienced improvements of over 50% in alertness and a 34% increase in cognitive performance following a nap of 26 minutes (technically, this included an initial six-minute sleep onset time). “My advice is setting a timer for half an hour or less – the majority doze off within 10 minutes,” explains a sleep coach. “There is plenty of recommendations about the ideal number for sleeping, but that tends to cause people to feel more stressed than anything else – and the worst thing you can do while aiming to fall asleep is worry about it.”
Should you decide to take an extended nap, avoid the period between 45 and 60 minutes that induces sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling when you awaken. “Studies would say it’s better to opt for an extended nap of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” says the expert. “Forty-five minutes is sufficient to plunge you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel groggy upon awakening – however, if you nap for slightly longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to be on the end of a sleep cycle and should wake up feeling more alert. But if you’re sleeping for a long period, it may impact how you sleep that night.”
Creating an Ideal Nap Environment
When it comes to precise methods, suggestions are diverse. Certain specialists suggest adopting similar routines you’d use to foster restful sleep: a quiet room, a comfortable bed and maximum darkness as is feasible. Others suggest that it's fine to simply nap on a couch in whatever light is available – to avoid that groggy feeling and to preserve your sleeping quarters as the place you associate with *real* sleep. “Napping is quite challenging to command,” notes a sleep coach. “Without the urge to sleep, it is more challenging to lie down and practically tell yourself to go to sleep. You need some drive available to bring the sleep on in the first place. Personally, I can often snooze in broad daylight and naturally wake up alarm-free, however, what assists most folks is to wait for a time where they feel naturally somewhat sleepy and calmly ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and if you have few options – for instance, when aiming to grab some shut-eye on a train or in a soundproof office pod – there’s nothing wrong to use some accessories. “Coaching professional sportspeople, I recommend that they avoid becoming accustomed to napping in bed, as they’re going to have|they will
