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Listen to a few productivity podcasters, and you'll be simple to convince yourself that dozing is a powerful tool: more than a quick fix following restless night, but a route to a better memory, a brighter outlook and maybe quicker running times. Elite footballers do it regularly – along with concert pianists, mixed martial artists and business leaders. Yet, when you haven’t got a room for napping or a career that encourages daytime sleep, is it *truly* sufficient advantages to a burst of shut-eye to merit the hassle? Can you find a reliable way to nod off promptly? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you’ll wake up feeling improved, instead of groggy?

Identifying Your Drive to Snooze

“We can identify three main reasons for napping in the adult population,” says a professor of sleep science specialist. “Firstly, there's termed compensatory napping, which is what you do following insufficient sleep the night before. The second is prophylactic napping, where you are pre-empting insufficient sleep in the future, such as during on night shifts. The third reason is “pleasure-based sleep”, which essentially is about wanting: you have a moment to doze during the day, and it's enjoyable to indulge.”

The initial step to do, so, is to think about your nap motivation. “Daytime sleep can be truly beneficial when nighttime sleep is disturbed due to causes beyond your control – for instance, when you are a new parent, or if you are healing from illness or intense exercise,” says a sleep specialist. “Yet when you nap as your night sleep feels fragile or broken, that’s often a signal your sleep drive is not at the level it should be. Under those circumstances, napping can become a contributing factor, instead of the fix. Employ naps as a temporary measure to address immediate needs – the focus should still be a robust and regular overnight rest.”

The Optimal Nap Length

This implies that naps shouldn’t be sufficiently lengthy to affect your sleep at night, and best shouldn’t take place after about 3pm (contingent on when you sleep overnight). What's a reasonable length? Guidelines are mixed. Among the most-cited studies about napping, space agency scientists noted that space travelers showed improvements of over 50% in attentiveness and a 34% increase in performance after a 26-minute nap (to be precise, this involved an initial six-minute falling asleep phase). “I’d suggest using an alarm for half an hour or less – the majority are asleep quickly,” explains a sleep expert. “There’s a lot of guidance out there regarding the ideal number of time, but that tends to cause people to feel more anxious than anything else – and the most counterproductive thing you can do when attempting to nod off is to be anxious.”

If you’re going to take an extended nap, avoid the 45 to 60 minute range that encourages sleep grogginess, that disoriented sensation when you wake. “Studies indicates it's more effective to have a lengthier snooze of one to one and a half hours compared to a medium-length nap,” says the sleep scientist. “Three-quarters of an hour is long enough to plunge you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish when you wake up – whereas if you nap for a little longer to a full sleep cycle, you’re likely to be on the end a natural sleep cycle and should awaken feeling more rejuvenated. However, if you’re sleeping for a long period, it will affect the quality of your sleep later that night.”

Establishing an Ideal Snooze Setting

As for exact methodologies, advice differs. Some experts propose employing comparable habits you use to encourage restful sleep: a peaceful area, a comfortable bed and maximum darkness as you can manage. Some advise that one could just doze on the sofa in the existing light happens to be around – to prevent post-nap grogginess and to preserve your sleeping quarters as the space your mind associates with nighttime rest. “Sleep is quite challenging to will,” explains a sleep coach. “If you don’t have the urge to sleep, it is more challenging to recline and essentially command yourself to go to sleep. There’s got to be a natural inclination there to initiate sleep to begin with. For me, it's possible to take a nap in broad daylight and awaken on my own without an alarm, however, what assists a lot of people is to anticipate a time that they’re naturally slightly tired and calmly relax into it.”

Experimentation is key, and should options are scarce – for example, if you’re trying to squeeze in a quick nap during a commute or in a soundproof office pod – it is perfectly fine to employ sleep aids. “Coaching elite athletes, I suggest that they don’t get used to napping in bed, because they’re going to have|they will