The Key to a Perfect Snooze: Timing, Where & for How Long?

Tune into plenty of performance podcasters, and it’s easy to think that a nap is a superpower: more than a quick fix after a bad night’s sleep, but a shortcut to a better memory, better spirits and perhaps quicker running times. Elite soccer players swear by it – and so are musicians, fighters & media moguls. But if you lack a special sleep space or a career that permits regular snoozing, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye for it to be worth the kerfuffle? Can you find a reliable way to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you really guarantee you will get up feeling better, rather than worse?

Identifying Your Nap Motivation

“We can identify three primary motivations for taking a nap among most adults,” notes a professor of sleep and circadian science professor. “The first is known as recovery napping, essentially what happens following a lack of sleep the night before. Another is preparatory napping, where you are anticipating sleep loss ahead, for instance if you’re working on night shifts. The third reason is “hedonic napping”, which essentially is about wanting: you get a moment to nap in the afternoon, and it's enjoyable to nap.”

The initial step to do, therefore, is consider your reason for napping. “Naps can be really helpful when overnight rest is being disrupted due to causes beyond your control – for example, when you are a parent of a newborn, or if you are healing from illness or intense exercise,” explains a sleep physiologist. “But if you’re napping as your nighttime sleep feels fragile or unreliable, that’s often an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not as strong as required. Under those circumstances, daytime sleep can turn into a contributing factor, rather than the answer. Employ naps as a temporary measure to address immediate needs – the priority ought to remain a strong and predictable night’s sleep.”

The Optimal Nap Length

This implies that daytime sleep shouldn’t be sufficiently lengthy to interfere with your overnight rest, and best should not occur in the late afternoon (depending on when you go to bed at night). What's a reasonable length? Recommendations vary. From the most-cited studies about napping, space agency scientists noted that crew members experienced a boost of up to 54% in attentiveness and a 34% increase in cognitive performance post a 26-minute snooze (technically, this involved a six-minute sleep onset time). “I’d suggest setting a timer for 20 to 30 minutes – the majority doze off in under ten minutes,” explains a sleep expert. “There is plenty of guidance out there concerning the ideal number of minutes, but that tends to cause people to feel more anxious above all – and the least helpful action you can do when attempting to get to sleep is to stress over it.”

If you plan to nap for a longer period, avoid the 45 to 60 minute range that encourages sleep inertia, that foggy state upon waking. “Research indicates it's more effective to take a longer nap of 60 to 90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” says the sleep scientist. “45 minutes is long enough to put you into deep sleep and you’re more likely to feel disoriented when you wake up – while if you take it a little longer to an hour or 90 minutes, it's likely you'll to be completing a natural sleep cycle and are likely to get up feeling more rejuvenated. Though if you’re sleeping for a long period, it will affect your sleep in the evening.”

Establishing an Ideal Nap Environment

As for precise methods, suggestions are diverse. Some experts recommend using the same protocol you’d use to encourage restful sleep: a peaceful area, a supportive surface and minimal light as possible. Others suggest that it's fine to merely snooze on the sofa in whatever light is available – to avoid sleep inertia and to preserve your sleeping quarters as the environment you associate with nighttime rest. “Napping is notoriously difficult to will,” explains an expert. “If you don’t have any sleepiness, it becomes harder to get comfortable and essentially instruct yourself to nod off. There’s got to be some sleep pressure available to start the process to begin with. For me, it's possible to take a nap in broad daylight and naturally wake up alarm-free, but what helps many individuals is to look for a time that they’re naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently ease into sleep.”

It’s worth experimenting, and when options are scarce – such as, if attempting to squeeze in 40 winks on a train or in a soundproof office pod – there’s nothing wrong to employ a few tools. “Coaching professional sportspeople, I recommend that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, as they’re going to have|they will