Tune into plenty of performance experts, making it tempting to believe that dozing is a superpower: not just a sticking plaster after restless night, but a shortcut to enhanced cognition, a brighter outlook and maybe a faster 5k run time. Elite soccer players swear by it – along with musicians, UFC champions and media moguls. However, if you haven’t got a special sleep space or a career that allows daytime sleep, is it *truly* enough benefits to a burst of shut-eye to merit the hassle? Is there a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you truly ensure you’ll wake up feeling better, rather than worse?
Identifying The Drive to Snooze
“Experts note three primary motivations for taking a nap in the adult population,” explains an expert sleep science professor. “One is known as recovery napping, essentially what you do after experiencing poor sleep the night before. Another is preparatory napping, which involves pre-empting a sleep deficit in the future, such as during overnight shifts. The third is called “appetitive drive”, which basically is about the wish: you get a chance to doze in the afternoon, and it's pleasant to nap.”
The first thing to do, so, is to examine your reason for napping. “Napping can be genuinely useful when overnight rest gets interrupted because of factors outside your control – for example, if you’re a new parent, or you’re recovering after being ill or intense exercise,” explains a sleep physiologist. “But if you nap because your nighttime sleep feels fragile or unreliable, that can be a signal your body's sleep pressure is not at the level it should be. In such situations, napping can become a contributing factor, rather than the answer. Employ naps as a short-term solution to address immediate needs – the focus should still be a solid and consistent overnight rest.”
The Ideal Nap Length
This means that daytime sleep shouldn’t be long enough to interfere with your nighttime sleep, and ideally shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (based on when you go to bed overnight). What duration is wise? Guidelines are mixed. In one of the most referenced research on the subject, researchers at Nasa found that crew members showed a boost of up to 54% in vigilance plus a 34% rise in performance after a 26-minute nap (technically, this included a six-minute long sleep onset time). “I’d suggest setting a timer for 20 to 30 minutes – the majority fall asleep in under ten minutes,” says a specialist. “You'll find much advice around about the perfect length of minutes, however, that can make people feel more anxious than anything – and the least helpful action you can do when trying to nod off is to stress over it.”
If you’re going to sleep for longer, avoid the 45 to 60 minute range that encourages sleep inertia, that disoriented sensation when you wake. “Research suggests it is preferable to take an extended nap of 60 to 90 minutes than a medium-length one,” says the expert. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to send you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel disoriented when you get up – while if you nap for a little longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to be completing a natural sleep cycle and will probably wake up feeling more alert. However, if you're dozing for an hour and a half, it will affect the quality of your sleep that night.”
Establishing an Ideal Snooze Setting
As for exact methodologies, recommendations vary. Certain specialists recommend adopting the same protocol you’d use to promote restful sleep: a silent space, a supportive surface and maximum darkness as you can manage. Others suggest that one could simply nap on the sofa in the existing light is available – to avoid that groggy feeling and to maintain your bedroom as the space you associate with proper sleep. “Sleep is quite challenging to force,” notes a sleep coach. “Lacking any drowsiness, it is more challenging to get comfortable and basically command yourself to nod off. There must be some sleep pressure present to initiate sleep in the first place. Personally, I can often snooze in full light and naturally wake up without an alarm, though, what aids many individuals is to look for an instance that they’re naturally slightly tired and just gently ease into sleep.”
Experimentation is key, and if options are scarce – for instance, if attempting to grab some shut-eye on a train or in a work pod – it's acceptable to employ sleep aids. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I advise that they avoid becoming accustomed to their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
