We’ve all experienced it: the mid-afternoon slump.
Your energy dips, it feels impossible to focus, and you just keep working along.
Coffee is tempting, but you know it’ll cause you to sleep poorly at night.
There’s another solution: The nap.
Napping isn’t just for toddlers; everyone can benefit from naps.
Nap Effects: Just Like a Good Night’s Sleep
Naps can have positive effects on your cognitive and physical functions. Basically, they replicate many of the benefits of quality sleep at night. Just as a quality nighttime rest boosts your:
- Productivity
- Health
- Happiness
A nap can do the same.
In a study by NASA on sleepy military pilots and astronauts, a 40-minute nap led to a 34% increase in performance and a whopping 100% increase in alertness.
However, there are some guidelines to ensure that your nap produces the intended positive effects. If you don’t get this right, your nap can do more harm than good.
As a student, I used to nap after coming home from school, and ended up feeling even more tired as a result.
Timing is Key: The Ideal Nap Window
The most beneficial time to nap falls within a specific window: between 12 and 3pm. This timing aligns with our natural circadian rhythm, the internal process that regulates our sleep-wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours.
Most people naturally have a post-lunch energy dip. About 8 hours after waking up, your circadian rhythm has a natural dip. So if you wake up at 7am, this is at 3pm. Also, after lunch, your body’s expends energy digesting your food, which leads to a natural dip in energy.
Both of these make this time window ideal for a nap.
The Late Nap Trap
Napping after 3-4pm is not recommended, because it can disrupt your circadian rhythm and interfere with your nighttime sleep.
Napping too late makes it more difficult to feel sleepy and fall asleep on time in the evening, and ultimately prevents you from getting quality sleep at night.
Your primary night sleep is the most important. If your nap causes you to stay up way too late, the benefit of the nap is outweighed by the harm to your quality sleep at night.
Unfortunately, if you’re a student in school, napping at 4pm when you come home from a long day is not a great strategy. You’ll have to find other ways to improve your sleep.
The Perfect Nap Length
The ideal nap duration is typically 20-30 minutes, often referred to as a ‘power nap.’ This allows you to stay in the lighter stages of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, making it easier to wake up and get back to your activities without feeling groggy.
Back in 2015, I learned about the 18 minute nap from the entrepreneur Tai Lopez. You set your alarm for 18 minutes and lie down, giving your body a few minutes to drift off, and then nap for the remaining time. It will take you a few minutes to fall asleep, and then you actually are asleep for about 10-15 minutes.
Paradoxically, despite the short time, power naps are actually more rejuvenating than longer naps.
Some Other Optimizations
Here are some other tactics you can use to strategically use naps to increase your energy:
- If you know you will have to stay up late, then plan a nap earlier in the day.
- If you have an unexpected and unavoidable event that causes you to get poor sleep, try napping the day after.
- Nap in a environment that is quiet, dark, and cool, just like the ideal environment for regular sleep.
- Try a coffee nap: Drink a cup of cold black coffee quickly, and then take a power nap. The coffee will kick in after about 25 minutes, which will help prevent you from sleeping too long, and make you feel even more energized after you wake up. Use sparingly.
Conclusion
Done properly, a well-timed nap can be a powerful tool to improve your sleep routine, with only a relatively short amount of time.
Next time you’re tempted to reach for that mid-afternoon coffee, consider a power nap instead. It might just be the productivity boost you need!