Improve Your Focus and Creativity with a Nap
What about napping? What is the optimal length for your nap? The available scientific literature points to these observations:
- Napping for five minutes or less is too short for you to move through various sleep stages to give you significant benefit.
- Napping for thirty minutes or longer allows you to enter deep sleep. Such a nap can invigorate you. On the other hand, resting for too long or awakening from deep, slow-wave sleep can leave you with so-called sleep inertia (feeling groggy).
I want to look at these two observations in more detail. Researchers from the School of Psychology at Flinders University (Australia) studied 24 healthy, young adults who were good sleepers and not regular nappers. The scientist found that a five-minute nap produced few benefits (when compared with the no-nap control group).
The researchers found improvements in several measures, including sleep latency, fatigue, and cognitive performance). Some of the benefits continued for up to 155 minutes. A 20-minute nap led to improvements emerging 35 minutes after napping and lasting up to 125 minutes.
The 30-minute nap led to impaired alertness and performance in the period immediately after the rest. After this initial sleep inertia, improvements emerged and lasted up to 155 minutes.
The study authors felt that the 10-minute nap appeared to be the most effective afternoon nap duration of the nap lengths examined.
Sleep and creativity (and more)
Do you regularly get seven to nine hours of sleep? A lack of sleep is associated with many health issues. Among the problems linked to short sleep are obesity, depression, diabetes, and arthritis. While that nap you are now considering doesn’t reverse short sleep, The Sleep Foundation reminds us that it may improve your mood, alertness, and job performance.
A 1995 study from NASA found that alertness and performance increased by 54 and 43 percent, respectively, among military pilots who napped for around 26 minutes. You and I can probably learn a lot from pilots for whom alertness is critical.
For me, a 15-minute nap is ideal. I avoid going into a deep sleep and wake up refreshed. Here’s a pro tip for those who can consume caffeine without jitteriness: Try a napuccino. Drink caffeinated coffee ad then take your nap. The caffeine should kick in and awaken you about twenty minutes later, with the caffeine giving you an added boost.
You might improve your creativity, productivity, and alertness by merely taking a nap.
Sleep and learning
Please go here to learn more about how you can learn more about sleep and creativity.
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