The Formula for an Ideal Kip: Timing, Where & Duration?
Hear plenty of performance podcasters, and you'll be easy to believe that napping is a secret weapon: not just a sticking plaster after a bad night’s sleep, but a shortcut to enhanced cognition, better spirits and perhaps quicker running times. Elite athletes do it regularly – as do concert pianists, fighters and media moguls. However, if you lack a dedicated nap-room or a career that permits frequent naps, is it *truly* enough benefits to a burst of shut-eye to justify the effort? Is there a reliable way to nod off promptly? Plus, is it possible to honestly promise you will get up feeling improved, rather than worse?
Identifying The Drive to Snooze
“Experts note three primary motivations for napping among most adults,” explains a professor of sleep science specialist. “One is what we call make-up sleep, which is what you do following poor sleep the previous night. Secondly, there's preparatory napping, which involves preparing for insufficient sleep coming up, such as if you’re working graveyard shifts. Finally, there's “appetitive drive”, which simply boils down to the wish: you get a chance to doze in the afternoon, and it's pleasant to do it.”
The initial step to do, therefore, is consider why you want to nap. “Napping can be truly beneficial when overnight rest is being disrupted for reasons beyond your control – for instance, if you’re a parent of a newborn, or recovering from sickness or strenuous activity,” says a sleep physiologist. “But if you take a nap since your nighttime sleep feels fragile or unreliable, that is frequently a signal your sleep drive is not where it should be. Under those circumstances, naps can become a contributing factor, rather than the answer. Use napping as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the priority must always be a strong and predictable overnight rest.”
The Ideal Nap Duration
Therefore that naps ought not to be sufficiently lengthy to affect your sleep at night, and best shouldn’t take place post-3 p.m. (contingent on what time you go to bed in the evening). What's a reasonable length? Guidelines are mixed. In one of a prominent study on the subject, experts found that astronauts experienced improvements of over 50% in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in performance after a 26-minute nap (in detail, this involved a six-minute nodding-off period). “I’d suggest using an alarm for 20-30 minutes – the majority doze off quickly,” notes a specialist. “There is plenty of advice around about the ideal number of minutes, however, that can make people feel more stressed above all – and the worst thing one can do when trying to get to sleep is to be anxious.”
If you’re going to sleep for longer, avoid the 45-60 minute window that encourages that sluggish feeling, that foggy state when you wake. “The science indicates it’s better to take a longer nap lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” explains the professor. “Three-quarters of an hour is long enough to plunge you into deep sleep and it is more probable to feel sluggish upon awakening – whereas if you take it a little longer to 60 or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be completing a full cycle and are likely to wake up feeling more alert. But if you’re sleeping for 90 minutes, it can influence the quality of your sleep in the evening.”
Establishing the Right Snooze Setting
When it comes to precise methods, recommendations vary. Certain specialists propose using comparable habits you use to foster restful sleep: a silent space, a comfortable bed and minimal light as is feasible. Alternatively, experts propose that one could simply nap on a couch in the existing light happens to be around – both to discourage sleep inertia and to maintain your bedroom as the space you associate with nighttime rest. “Falling asleep is quite challenging to will,” explains a specialist. “Lacking any drowsiness, it is more challenging to lie down and basically instruct yourself to fall asleep. You need some drive there to start the process in the first place. For me, it's possible to take a nap in broad daylight and naturally wake up alarm-free, however, what assists a lot of people is to look for a moment that they’re naturally feeling a bit drowsy and just gently relax into it.”
Trying different approaches is valuable, and if you have few options – for instance, if you’re trying to grab a quick nap during a commute or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong to employ a few tools. “When I’m working with professional sportspeople, I advise that they don’t get used to their own bed for naps, since they’re going to have|they will
