Basically, if you can sneak in a nap at lunch it will do more for you than one after work. That being said, a quick 30 minutes of shut-eye after work is definitely miles better than nothing at all! It just won’t be quite as effective. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nHow long should you nap for?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Try to decide if you want a quick ‘pick-me-up’ or if you need a full rest to really hit a reset switch. If it’s something quick, then 20-30 minutes is a great amount of time to let yourself destress, relax, and give your brain some time to breathe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you’re after something longer then aim for 90 minutes. An hour and a half is equivalent to around 1 sleep cycle for the average person. Waking up after 1 cycle should leave you feeling really refreshed and ready to go – but longer than that risks you going back into a deep sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For what it’s worth – we can relate these times to examples covered previously. The FAA recommends a half hour nap for pilots needing to be on point for landing, while the Greek islanders who lived to 90 often had naps which were 2-3 hours long. (Though they slept less at night because of it).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nNap Tips & Tricks<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Ideally, the best time to nap is right after you’ve eaten a good lunch and have some time to spare – it’s always good to eat first and then let yourself relax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In terms of location, bed may not actually be the best place. Try kicking back on a couch or even just on a chair to help prevent yourself from getting into too deep a sleep (if you’re going for a quick power nap).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That being said, I’m lucky enough to work near home and often don’t hesitate to jump into bed and catch a quick 30 minutes at lunch. It does take me 10 minutes or so to fully wake up afterwards, but I always feel much better because of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you’re napping after work, <\/strong>try not to make the room too <\/em>dark. Some ambient lighting would be best, to let your brain know that it’s not quite night-time yet. Falling asleep in a fully dark, silent room may be too strong for what you’re trying to achieve – leaving you with an impossible task of trying to resurface yourself back out of neverland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether or not to nap after work can often be a huge issue. As someone who works an 8am to 5pm office job, I often arrive home exhausted – wanting nothing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":356,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sleeping.guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sleeping.guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sleeping.guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sleeping.guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sleeping.guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sleeping.guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":697,"href":"https:\/\/sleeping.guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264\/revisions\/697"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sleeping.guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sleeping.guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sleeping.guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sleeping.guide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}