Ever get up from a nap feeling further groggy? Naps could be helpful on your psychological and bodily well being – however there’s a couple of issues you want to know. NPR’s Life Equipment has suggestions for the optimum nap.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Perhaps you consider napping as a luxurious. I actually do. However there are plenty of well being advantages to a every day snooze if you happen to do it proper. Life Equipment’s Andee Tagle has extra on the easy steps to an excellent nap.
ANDEE TAGLE, BYLINE: The listing of potential advantages from napping is a protracted one.
JADE WU: I prefer to name it performance-enhancing drug with out the drug.
TAGLE: That is Jade Wu, a sleep drugs specialist and researcher primarily based in North Carolina, and creator of the guide “Good day Sleep.”
WU: It is good for our emotion regulation. It makes us much less biased in direction of damaging stimuli, extra versatile in our considering.
TAGLE: After which there are the bodily advantages, too.
WU: So athletes will usually use a nap to essentially increase their efficiency, they usually’ll discover that they’ve extra energy, extra stamina. They really feel fatigue much less shortly. Napping actually can all-around profit our efficiency and our total well being.
TAGLE: However all naps should not created equal. Ever woken up from a day snooze and felt much more drained?
WU: Groggy, you are dragging. You are like, the place am I? What time is it?
TAGLE: There is a time period for that discombobulated feeling – sleep inertia. And it occurs whenever you get up in the midst of deep sleep. So how are you going to ensure your nap will go away you feeling refreshed? It is so simple as C, E, B.
WU: We need to be constant, early and transient.
TAGLE: Let’s take every of these one after the other. First up, C for constant.
WU: And by constant, I imply, not haphazardly, generally early, generally late, generally, you already know, lengthy, generally quick.
TAGLE: Wu says take a web page out of some European international locations’ playbooks and decide a delegated time to relaxation.
WU: If you are going to have a siesta, do it on the similar time every single day.
TAGLE: Then there’s E for early.
WU: Noon, early afternoon can be glorious.
TAGLE: Wu suggests aiming for a nap between midday and three p.m. in the course of the day to keep away from sabotaging your nighttime sleep. Or for the evening owls and shift staff on the market, which means napping not less than six to eight hours earlier than your major relaxation interval to offer your self sufficient time to get sleepy once more earlier than mattress. Lastly, there’s B for transient. This one is perhaps painful if you happen to’re a fan of a protracted, leisurely afternoon snooze, however…
WU: Naps which can be too lengthy are, to begin with, going to intrude together with your nighttime sleep, and we do not need that.
TAGLE: Taking quick naps additionally makes it extra possible that you’re going to keep within the lighter phases of sleep and can be capable to keep away from that sleep inertia.
WU: We need to maintain it at about half an hour, hour at most. When you set a timer for about 45 minutes, give your self a couple of minutes to get into sleep, you will most likely find yourself sleeping about 30-ish minutes. And that is fairly protected. That is good.
TAGLE: From there, it is nearly making the time to take that break, which, in fact, is simpler stated than achieved.
WU: It would take plenty of follow at first as a result of we’re conditioned to be at all times multitasking, at all times productive, proper? It is actually arduous to really simply relaxation for half-hour in the midst of the day, but it surely’s so essential.
TAGLE: And sure, that was relaxation you heard, stay awake. When you’re not the napping kind, Wu says there’s nonetheless plenty of profit in taking a daytime pause.
WU: If I go to sleep, nice. If I do not go to sleep, additionally nice. Even if you happen to simply sort of hand around in a meditative state, do some mindfulness practices and even simply let your thoughts wander, these states are actually restful and actually particular and could be rejuvenating in the same means {that a} nap could be rejuvenating.
TAGLE: For NPR’s Life Equipment, I am Andee Tagle.
CHANG: And for extra Life Equipment, try npr.org/lifekit.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional info.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts could differ. Transcript textual content could also be revised to appropriate errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org could also be edited after its authentic broadcast or publication. The authoritative document of NPR’s programming is the audio document.
