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Tune into plenty of self-improvement experts, and it’s easy to think that napping is a secret weapon: more than a band-aid following a bad night’s sleep, but a route to a better memory, better spirits and possibly quicker running times. Premier League soccer players swear by it – as do professional piano players, UFC champions and media moguls. However, if you don't have a special sleep space or a career that allows frequent naps, can there *honestly* worthwhile perks to a short sleep to justify the effort? Is there a surefire technique to get to sleep quickly enough? Furthermore, can you really guarantee you will get up feeling improved, not worse?

Understanding Your Drive to Snooze

“We can identify three primary motivations for napping in the adult population,” notes an expert sleep science researcher. “The first is what we call recovery napping, essentially what happens when you’ve had insufficient sleep the previous night. Another is prophylactic napping, when you are pre-empting sleep loss in the future, for example if you’re working on night shifts. The third reason is “appetitive drive”, which essentially boils down to the wish: you have an opportunity to doze in the afternoon, and it's enjoyable to indulge.”

The first thing to do, so, is to examine your nap motivation. “Daytime sleep can be really helpful when overnight rest gets interrupted because of factors you cannot change – for instance, if you’re a new parent, or if you are healing from illness or strenuous activity,” says a sleep expert. “But if you take a nap because your sleep at night feels fragile or broken, that’s often a signal your sleep drive is not as strong as it should be. In such situations, naps can become part of the problem, rather than the answer. Use napping as a temporary measure for temporary issues – the focus must always be a robust and regular overnight rest.”

The Optimal Nap Length

Therefore that napping shouldn’t be long enough to interfere with your sleep at night, and ideally should not occur in the late afternoon (contingent on when you sleep at night). How long is sensible? Guidelines are mixed. From the most-cited studies on the subject, experts found that space travelers experienced up to a 54% increase in vigilance plus a 34% rise in task performance post a 26-minute snooze (technically, this included a six-minute falling asleep phase). “My advice is setting an alarm for 20-30 minutes – most people doze off quickly,” explains a sleep coach. “There’s a lot of advice around concerning the ideal number of time, yet that often lead individuals to become more stressed above all – and the worst thing one can do while aiming to nod off is worry about it.”

If you plan to sleep for longer, avoid the period between 45 and 60 minutes that induces sleep inertia, that disoriented sensation when you wake. “Research would say it's more effective to opt for a lengthier snooze of 60 to 90 minutes than a medium-length one,” notes the professor. “45 minutes is sufficient to send you into deep sleep making it more likely to feel sluggish when you get up – while if you nap for a little longer to an hour or 90 minutes, you’re likely to be completing a full cycle and should awaken feeling more alert. But if you nap for an hour and a half, it may impact how you sleep that night.”

Finding the Right Snooze Setting

As for specific techniques, suggestions are diverse. Some experts propose adopting comparable habits you’d use to encourage a good night’s sleep: a peaceful area, a cozy bed and as much darkness as you can manage. Some advise that you should merely snooze in a chair with ambient lighting happens to be around – both to discourage that groggy feeling and to “protect” your bedroom as the space your brain links with nighttime rest. “Falling asleep is notoriously difficult to will,” notes an expert. “If you don’t have the urge to sleep, it is more challenging to recline and essentially command yourself to nod off. You need some sleep pressure there to bring the sleep on in the first place. Personally, I can often snooze during the day and awaken on my own without a timer, though, what aids many individuals is to look for an instance that they’re naturally somewhat sleepy and calmly ease into sleep.”

It’s worth experimenting, and if options are scarce – for instance, if you’re trying to fit in some shut-eye on a train or at the office – there’s nothing wrong with bringing some accessories. “Coaching footballers, I advise that they avoid becoming accustomed to their own bed for naps, because they’re going to have|they will