How to nap like a pro
How to nap during midday: you either know it and love it well, find yourself physically incapable of falling asleep unless it’s nighttime, or like the actor Jon Bernthal, completely reject the entire premise. But whether you’re a devoted daytime dozer who plans a nap into their afternoon schedule, or someone who can’t remember their last siesta, the practice of briefly checking out while the sun is still up is quite divisive.
“Napping is a controversial issue in the sleep community because it may be good for some people and it may be bad for other people,” says Dr Matthew Ebben, an associate professor of psychology and clinical neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr Ebben is also the associate director of the Center for Sleep Medicine, a multidisciplinary treatment center on New York City’s Upper East Side. A bulk of his job is making recommendations to his patients about how to improve their sleep and daytime alertness. Unfortunately, because napping is such an inexact science, feeling energised is not as simple as taking a short power nap or a two-hour deep snooze.
“If you look at the research, it really depends on what population you’re looking at,” Ebben says. “It’s often recommended that people nap about 90 minutes for optimal athletic performance. To reduce the risk of sleep inertia, the 20-minute recommendation is often given.”
The 20-minute nap has also gained popularity amongst people who don’t conduct sleep research for a living. Office workers, exhausted parents, and sleepyheads everywhere laud the 20-minute repose for being the most efficient, least day-ruining way to fight lethargy. In addition to Dr. Ebben, there’s plenty of other reputable sources who vouch for it as well, including Harvard University, the Mayo Clinic, and the National Institute of Health. But beware of sleep inertia, a term defined by the CDC as “temporary disorientation and decline in performance and/or mood after awakening from sleep.” In other words, that endlessly frustrating (and seemingly unfair) feeling of being even more groggy after taking a nap.
But for the thousands of nappers out there happily indulging in the 20-minute reset, a pertinent question remains: what is the best time to conk out? “When someone’s sleeping during normal nighttime hours, it’s usually recommended that they nap between 1 and 4 o’clock [in the afternoon],” according to Ebben. The key to all sleep-related issues, though, is the big nightly sleep. Many times, the necessity of a mid-afternoon nap stems from not getting deep enough rest during the night. To avoid needing a sunlit nap at all, Ebben says, make sure to be getting quality moonlit sleep. But on the flip side, a strong nap always carries the risk of creating weak sleep. Napping reduces adenosine (the natural reserve of sleep drive that happens in our brains during the day), which needs time to build up again to properly fall asleep at night.
“Every person has a certain 24-hour sleep need,” Ebben begins. “If they dissipate that sleep need at night, they feel alert and refreshed during the day. Now, if you nap during the day, even though you’re getting sufficient sleep at night, it could result in poor-quality sleep at night. But if you’re getting insufficient sleep at night, for whatever reason—you’re working late, you’re going out with friends, whatever—you can break your sleep up. You can nap during the day and sleep a little bit less at night.” (However, sticking to a regular nightly bedtime and sleep schedule is among the most advisable ways to feel your best during the day.)
Another thing Ebben wants to clarify is that, even if you are a strict no-phone-in-bed person—a practice that typically comes from the idea that bed should be a place strictly for going to sleep at night, and should not host any other activities—it is perfectly fine to nap in bed. I tell Ebben that I’ve seen online, and heard from real-life friends, that they nap solely on the couch, as a way to differentiate napping and full-on sleeping to their brain. Ebben calls this a “strange recommendation.”
“When we have folks that have insomnia, one of the treatment elements that we think about is what’s called stimulus control,” Ebben says. “When you pair sleep with your bedroom environment, you’re going to condition yourself to sleep in that environment over time. I mean, a nap is sleep. So if you just go into your bed and you nap and you set your alarm, maybe you want it to be a 20-minute nap, you are theoretically strengthening that conditioning. You’re applying that stimulus control to that situation. Now, if you plan on going on your phone, eating, doing other things in bed, that would not be good for that stimulus control.”
There you have it. Upon a chair, lying bare, on your bed, in a shed…napping can take many different forms. But if you want to take your napping advice from an expert, remember that 90 minutes is best if you want to get in tip-top athletic shape, and 20 minutes is ideal for feeling alert while not accidentally staying up all night. Pinpointing the hours of 1 to 4 P.M. will perfect your routine. And if you aren’t somebody who experiences the magnetic pull of a cat nap, well, Dr. Ebben has a message for that, too.
“Listen to your body. Don’t do it. You’re alert enough!”