World Sleep Day, which is annual celebration of sleep, falls every year in March on the Friday before the spring equinox. The day has been organised by the World Sleep Day Committee of World Sleep Society and is meant to raise awareness about sleep-related problems.
When you feel like you haven't had a good night's sleep, a solid nap can be one of the best ways to restore energy levels during the day. However, it's important to get the technique of napping just right - if you do it wrong, you might actually end up feeling groggy and disrupt your sleep at night.
Sleep expert, Kiera Pritchard of Eachnight.com, reveals her top tips for the perfect nap.
What is the best length for a nap?
Naps are great for you, but it's not good to nap for too long. Kiera Pritchard explains that since sleep happens in cycles, it's important that you choose a nap length that works well with the demands of your day.
A normal sleep cycle is around 90 minutes and begins with lighter stages of sleep before entering deep, rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.
30–60-minute naps
This length might seem tempting as they are quite short. However, these naps usually send you into the deeper third and fourth stages of sleep. So when you wake up, you might experience sleep inertia, which is the transitional stage between sleep and wakefulness. This can leave you feeling groggy and drowsy, which can impact the rest of your day.
90-minute naps
These naps are the perfect length as they let you complete one full sleep cycle. Since you've experienced every stage of sleep within 90 minutes, you tend to wake up from these naps easily, feeling refreshed and more awake
Napping for a full sleep cycle helps boost creativity and improve procedural and emotional memory. But try to avoid taking these 90-minute naps within seven hours of your scheduled bedtime, as this might interfere with your sleep at night.
10–20-minute naps
In case you don't have time in your schedule for a 90-minute nap, a 10- to 20-minute power nap is also great to boost energy and alertness.
Usually within this length, you stay in the first two stages of non-rapid eye movement, which are the lightest stages of sleep. This means you can wake up from them easily, and you're left feeling alert with boosted performance levels.
What is the best time of day to nap?
According to sleep expert Kiera Pritchard, the best time to take a nap is six to eight hours after waking up. This typically tends to be between 1 and 3pm for most people.
Taking a nap any time after this can interfere with your sleep schedule and can make it difficult to sleep at night. So try not to nap any later than early afternoon or beyond the rough midpoint of the time you usually wake up and bedtime.
What are the health benefits of napping?
Napping not only leaves you feeling well-rested, but also provides several mental and physical benefits. Some benefits of napping include:
- Improved mood - Naps can significantly improve your mood and reduce negative reactions to anxiety and fear.
- Improved memory - Naps help consolidate memories of what you learned earlier in the day at school or work.
- Creativity - A nap can help forge connections between different concepts, which can then manifest as increased creativity if you nap long enough to enter REM sleep.
- Recovery - Naps help you recover from illness as it allows your body to recoup energy to fight off a viral or bacterial infection.
3 steps to the perfect nap
Step 1
First, find a quiet, restful place to take your nap. This should ideally be a dark and relatively cool place with minimal distractions. At home, the obvious choice would be your bedroom. But if you're at your office or car, an eye mask and earplugs can help you block out outside noise and light.
Step 2
Before you take your nap, set an alarm for the amount of time you want to sleep for to make sure you don't oversleep.
Step 3
If you're unable to fall asleep, try relieving stress and relaxing with breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation.
Lie down with your eyes closed and breathe in and out slowly. Pritchard said: "While breathing in, focus on directing your breathing down to your belly. Saying a mantra to yourself such as, “Breathing in I am calm, breathing out I am coping,” while performing this breathing exercise may also help."
She added: "After you’ve taken a few gentle breaths, start tensing groups of muscles as you breathe. This method requires you to hold a muscle’s tension as you breathe in, releasing it as you breathe out. Start with the muscles in the head and neck, then move your focus down your body. Tense and relax your muscles in your shoulders, arms, back, stomach, thighs, and so on."
After your nap
If you wake up from your nap feeling groggy, some solutions include:
- Taking a quick walk in the sun to get your body moving and get your circadian rhythm back on track.
- Consuming a small cup of coffee or another source of moderate caffeine for a quick boost.
- Splashing some cold water on your face.
Napping has been found to be as effective as night time sleep in enhancing memory processes, however, Pritchard stresses that no nap can replace a night of lost sleep, adding that getting good sleep at night should be your number one priority.
