The Key to an Ideal Kip: When, Where & Duration?

Listen to plenty of performance experts, and you'll be simple to think that dozing is a powerful tool: more than a band-aid following poor sleep, but a route towards improved recall, a brighter outlook and perhaps quicker running times. Elite footballers swear by it – as do musicians, UFC champions & media moguls. But if you haven’t got a room for napping or a job that encourages frequent naps, can there *honestly* worthwhile perks to a burst of shut-eye to justify the effort? Does there exist a reliable way to nod off promptly? Plus, is it possible to truly ensure you will get up feeling better, instead of groggy?

Identifying Your Drive to Snooze

“Experts note three main reasons for napping among most adults,” notes a professor of sleep science specialist. “One is known as make-up sleep, essentially what happens when you’ve had poor sleep the night before. Secondly, there's prophylactic napping, when you are preparing for insufficient sleep ahead, for instance during overnight shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which basically is about the wish: you get a moment to nap in the daytime, and it's enjoyable to do it.”

The initial step to do, so, is to examine your nap motivation. “Napping can be really helpful when night sleeping is disturbed because of factors beyond your control – for instance, when you are a parent of a newborn, or you’re recovering from sickness or intense exercise,” explains a sleep expert. “Yet when you nap as your sleep at night is unstable or unreliable, that is frequently an indicator your need for sleep is not at the level required. In those cases, daytime sleep can turn into part of the issue, instead of the fix. Employ naps as a temporary measure for short-term problems – the priority ought to remain a strong and predictable sleep at night.”

The Ideal Snooze Time

This implies that napping must not be sufficiently lengthy to disrupt your overnight rest, and ideally are not recommended after about 3pm (depending on when you go to bed in the evening). What duration is wise? Recommendations vary. In one of the most referenced research regarding daytime sleep, space agency scientists discovered that astronauts showed improvements of over 50% in attentiveness plus a 34% rise in task performance post a 26-minute snooze (to be precise, this involved an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest setting a timer for half an hour or less – the majority doze off within 10 minutes,” notes a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of advice around about the perfect length of minutes, however, that can cause people to feel more stressed above all – and the worst thing you can do while aiming to fall asleep is to stress over it.”

If you plan to take an extended nap, avoid the 45 to 60 minute range that induces sleep grogginess, that spaced-out feeling when you awaken. “The science suggests it's more effective to have an extended nap of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” says the sleep scientist. “Forty-five minutes is long enough to plunge you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel groggy upon awakening – however, if you take it a little longer to a full sleep cycle, you will probably to finish a full cycle and will probably get up feeling more alert. But if you're dozing for 90 minutes, it can influence the quality of your sleep later that night.”

Finding an Ideal Nap Environment

When it comes to precise methods, recommendations vary. Certain specialists propose using comparable habits one would use to encourage a good night’s sleep: a peaceful area, a supportive surface and minimal light as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that you should just doze in a chair with ambient lighting is present – to avoid sleep inertia and to “protect” your bed as the space you associate with *real* sleep. “Sleep is something really tricky to command,” explains a specialist. “Lacking any sleepiness, it becomes harder to get comfortable and practically tell yourself to fall asleep. There must be a natural inclination present to initiate sleep in the first place. I can usually snooze in full light and awaken on my own without a timer, but what helps most folks is to wait for a time when they are naturally somewhat sleepy and just gently relax into it.”

Trying different approaches is valuable, and if your choices are limited – such as, if attempting to fit in a quick nap during a commute or in a work pod – there’s nothing wrong to use some accessories. “In my work with professional sportspeople, I suggest that they avoid becoming accustomed to their own bed for naps, because they’re going to have|they will