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Hear a few self-improvement gurus, making it simple to convince yourself that napping is a secret weapon: more than a sticking plaster after a bad night’s sleep, but a path towards enhanced cognition, better spirits and possibly quicker running times. Professional athletes swear by it – along with professional piano players, mixed martial artists & high-profile executives. But if you lack a special sleep space or a career that encourages daytime sleep, are there *really* enough benefits to a quick nap for it to be worth the effort? Can you find a dependable method to get to sleep quickly enough? And can you truly ensure you will get up feeling refreshed, not worse?

Exploring The Drive to Snooze

“We can identify three primary motivations for taking a nap for many people,” explains an expert sleep science professor. “The first is known as compensatory napping, essentially what happens when you’ve had poor sleep overnight. Secondly, there's pre-emptive sleep, which involves anticipating insufficient sleep ahead, for example if you’re working on night shifts. The third is called “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially is about desire: you have a chance to sleep during the day, and it feels nice to indulge.”

The first thing to consider, so, is consider why you want to nap. “Naps can be truly beneficial when overnight rest is disturbed for reasons beyond your control – for instance, for caring for an infant, or if you are healing from sickness or heavy physical exertion,” explains a sleep specialist. “Yet when you take a nap as your night sleep is unstable or poor, that is frequently an indicator your body's sleep pressure is not at the level required. In those cases, daytime sleep can turn into part of the problem, not the solution. Use napping for brief periods for short-term problems – the priority ought to remain a solid and consistent night’s sleep.”

The Optimal Nap Length

This means that napping ought not to be long enough to disrupt your nighttime sleep, and preferably shouldn’t take place post-3 p.m. (depending on when you go to bed in the evening). How long is sensible? Advice differs. From a prominent study regarding daytime sleep, researchers at Nasa discovered that astronauts showed a boost of up to 54% in vigilance and a 34% boost in performance following a nap of 26 minutes (in detail, this counted a six-minute sleep onset time). “I’d suggest setting a timer for 20-30 minutes – most people fall asleep in under ten minutes,” explains a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of advice around regarding the optimal amount of minutes, but that tends to make people feel more anxious than anything – and the worst thing one can do when attempting to get to sleep is to be anxious.”

If you’re going to take an extended nap, avoid the 45 to 60 minute range that induces that sluggish feeling, that disoriented sensation when you awaken. “Studies would say it's more effective to take an extended nap lasting 60-90 minutes rather than a mid-length nap,” explains the sleep scientist. “Three-quarters of an hour is enough time to send you into slow-wave sleep and it is more probable to feel groggy when you get up – whereas if you take it slightly longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to be completing a full cycle and are likely to awaken feeling more alert. However, if you nap for a long period, it may impact your sleep that night.”

Finding the Perfect Sleep Space

Regarding exact methodologies, advice differs. Certain specialists recommend employing similar routines you’d use to foster restful sleep: a silent space, a supportive surface and minimal light as possible. Alternatively, experts propose that you should simply nap on a couch in whatever light is present – both to discourage that groggy feeling and to “protect” your sleeping quarters as the space your mind associates with proper sleep. “Napping is quite challenging to force,” says a specialist. “Lacking the urge to sleep, it is tougher to recline and basically tell yourself to nod off. You need some drive present to start the process in the first place. Personally, I can often nap during the day and wake up naturally without an alarm, however, what assists a lot of people is to look for a time where they feel naturally feeling a bit drowsy and calmly relax into it.”

Experimentation is key, and when options are scarce – for example, if attempting to squeeze in 40 winks while traveling or at the office – there’s nothing wrong to use sleep aids. “Coaching footballers, I suggest that they don’t get used to sleeping in their bed, since they’re going to have|they will