Ever get up from a nap feeling additional groggy? Naps could be useful in your psychological and bodily well being – however there’s a couple of issues it is advisable know. NPR’s Life Package has ideas for the optimum nap.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Perhaps you consider napping as a luxurious. I definitely do. However there are numerous well being advantages to a each day snooze when you do it proper. Life Package’s Andee Tagle has extra on the straightforward steps to an awesome nap.
ANDEE TAGLE, BYLINE: The listing of potential advantages from napping is an extended 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 based mostly in North Carolina, and writer of the ebook “Howdy Sleep.”
WU: It is good for our emotion regulation. It makes us much less biased in the direction of destructive stimuli, extra versatile in our pondering.
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 rapidly. Napping actually can all-around profit our efficiency and our general well being.
TAGLE: However all naps are usually 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 once you get up in the midst of deep sleep. So how will you be sure your nap will depart 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 understand, lengthy, generally brief.
TAGLE: Wu says take a web page out of some European international locations’ playbooks and choose a delegated time to relaxation.
WU: If you are going to have a siesta, do it on the identical time day by day.
TAGLE: Then there’s E for early.
WU: Noon, early afternoon can be wonderful.
TAGLE: Wu suggests aiming for a nap between midday and three p.m. through the day to keep away from sabotaging your nighttime sleep. Or for the night time owls and shift staff on the market, which means napping at the least six to eight hours earlier than your major relaxation interval to present your self sufficient time to get sleepy once more earlier than mattress. Lastly, there’s B for transient. This one is perhaps painful when you’re a fan of an extended, 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 brief naps additionally makes it extra probably that you’re going to keep within the lighter phases of sleep and can be capable of keep away from that sleep inertia.
WU: We need to maintain it at about half an hour, hour at most. In the event 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 less complicated stated than carried out.
WU: It would take numerous follow at first as a result of we’re conditioned to be all the time multitasking, all the time productive, proper? It is actually laborious to truly simply relaxation for half-hour in the midst of the day, nevertheless it’s so essential.
TAGLE: And sure, that was relaxation you heard, stay awake. In the event you’re not the napping kind, Wu says there’s nonetheless numerous profit in taking a daytime pause.
WU: If I go to sleep, nice. If I do not go to sleep, additionally nice. Even when you simply form 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 an analogous means {that a} nap could be rejuvenating.
TAGLE: For NPR’s Life Package, I am Andee Tagle.
CHANG: And for extra Life Package, 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 data.
Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts could range. 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 unique broadcast or publication. The authoritative document of NPR’s programming is the audio document.
