(Full-size. Seen at Infographed tumblr.)
Naps can be refreshingly helpful if you, like me, are a busy fuck. And even if you aren’t. Because they are fucking amazing.
In order to get maximum benefit from a nap try to keep it short. About 35 minutes is the recommended maximum for a power nap. Anything more can affect your sleep inertia and offset your sleep cycle (leading to increased risk of insomnia).
The sleep cycle goes N1 → N2 → N3 → N2 → REM. Naps can be at their best when kept to the N1-N2 phase (up to the first 15-25 minutes of sleep). Go any more than that and you kick into deeper sleep stages, wake up groggy, and take longer to reach a useful state of alertness. And, like this chart presents, longer naps can give you some benefits as well but they should be planned for. A long nap late in your day may make it difficult to actually go to bed when you need to.
May as well just post this cos I keep checking it lately, like it’s a bible or something.
this is pretty cool but sometimes I’ll take a nap and hit REM dreamtime like INSTANTLY
which I don’t even know what that means???
See, when I nap, it’s like
for three or more hours
so technically I should be the healthiest person alive >:(
I take nano naps in class sometimes
involuntarily
i take nano naps and micro-naps in class
and at home i sleep way longer than a lazy man’s nap ahaha
People’s circadian rhythms tend to be a little different too, so you basically have to find a nap time sweet spot, if you will, and then stick with it. Mine is about an hour and forty-five minutes, and after a brief 10 minute bout of “holy fuck I’m still sleepy” that’s easily shaken off, I get all the benefits of REM without the grogginess! Any shorter than that, though, and I’m miserable.