Nap time isn’t just for kids, let’s be honest. Many of us can’t get through the day without a cheeky power nap. Or at least get through it in a good enough mood anyway.
But while it might just be squeezing in some shut eye the moment your lunch break begins or as many minutes of quiet as you can get as soon as you come home, there is some science behind it.
Sure, you might think you’ve cracked the perfect nap set-up with the perfect vibes and the perfect length of time set.
But an NHS doctor has warned against the ‘problematic’ nap length that can cause ‘sleep inertia’, and it could just be the amount of time you rinse from your work break.
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Sleep inertia is essentially that awful feeling of grogginess when you wake up. You know, when someone suddenly makes you get up and you feel like absolute s**t and have no idea where you are.
Usually it lasts from around five to 30 minutes but it can sometimes go on for as long as two to four hours – not ideal if you’ve napped in the middle of the work day.
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And during this time, you might feel like your concentration is totally thrown off and you’re just cruising by.
NHS doc, and Time4Sleep’s sleep expert, Dr Hana Patel told LADbible about the best and worst lengths of naps. She described a 20-minute nap as the ideal as it ‘allows your mind and body to rest without entering the deeper stages of sleep’.
Or, if you think you need it, you can treat yourself to a 60- to 90-minute nap which is ‘enough time to have deep, slow-wave sleep, but end up in the lighter stages of sleep so you feel alert when you wake up’.
It might surprise you, however, that the worst amount of time spent snoozing is actually in between these two dreamy lengths.
What seems like a decent amount to get in on a lunch break with enough time to still get your self together, Dr Patel described medium-length nap of about 45 minutes as ‘problematic’.
She explained: “Because you will likely wake up during slow-wave sleep, the deepest stage, which can leave you with that groggy feeling, called sleep inertia, when you wake up.”
Sorry if that’s just ruined anyone’s napping schedule, but no one wants to be waking up feeling like crap, do they?
Jess Battison