During my senior year of high school I took a nap every single day after school. This is when I fell in love with napping, which has translated into college. As a motivation to get out of bed for class at 8:00 a.m., I sometimes wake up in the morning promising myself that I’ll nap later. Napping is the best way I can continue on with my day.
Thankfully, naps are good for you and are even encouraged as a substitute for caffeine. A study published in 2014 noted that naps can help improve memory consolidation for unrelated word pairs, suggesting that naps can help when trying to learn concepts that are typically hard to remember.
Naps were also found to improve motor memory consolidation by facilitating brain function and visual systems.
However, waking up from a nap can leave you feeling either recharged or groggier than before. The body benefits from a particular increment of sleep, making an uninformed napper unable to get the right amount of Z’s.
The best time to nap is between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m. University of California’s Sara Mednick created a napping wheel to find where your “Ultimate Nap” occurs, as can be found here.
Typically, one can plan to nap six to eight hours after waking up because that is when your nap would have a balance of wave and REM sleep.
Naps at certain times and lengths have different results, so you need to know what you’re looking for. Restorative naps should be taken later in the day when you have a higher amount of slow wave sleep. Naps that boost creativity should be taken earlier in the day when you will experience more REM sleep. REM is the last stage of the sleep cycle so you have to sleep longer: between 60-90 minutes.
Thinking about skipping the nap and opting for caffeine? Dr. Mednick’s book Take a Nap! Change Your Life suggests otherwise. Her colleagues found that a 60 to 90 minute nap generally improved memory performance whereas 200 mg of caffeine neither affected nor worsened performance.
If time is a factor, consider taking a 10 minute afternoon nap. This is the best type of nap to take to recuperate after a night of restricted sleep. Even a quick nap between class can show cognitive improvement for as long as 155 minutes following the nap.
20-30 minutes naps have been proven as beneficial, but they require more time to reap the benefits of the nap because it takes time to recover from the sleep inertia caused by naps of this length.
Now that length and time are established, there are a few other factors that will determine the quality of your nap.
It’s important to find a safe, quiet place to lie down to nap. This seems obvious but not everyone considers the location of their naps, so no, the caf is not a good place to nap and, yes, lock your door. It’s also important to lie down when napping. It takes 50% longer to fall asleep when sitting upright in a chair or couch.
Plan when you’re going to nap. Since naps require more attention to time than one might think, set an alarm and pick a time that works for your schedule. If you know the night before that you won’t get that much sleep, plan a time to nap the next day.
Naps can be extremely beneficial when done right. Improved memory and over all cognitive function and be elicited by a good nap. Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to go take a nap.