Why You Should Take a 10 Minute Nap When You Get Afternoon Brain Fog
Ten-minute naps provide some powerful benefits
I don’t like naps. Don’t get me wrong. I like the idea of naps in theory, but in actual practice, they don’t usually make me feel any better. Instead, I get the opposite effect. When I wake up from a nap, I generally feel groggy and confused, and it continues the rest of the day. Then when it’s time to fall asleep at night, I find myself tossing and turning.
Therefore, I usually avoid naps unless I am sick or very sleep-deprived. Yesterday, I had a terrible headache and thought I should lie down and rest for a few minutes. I fell asleep. Not ten minutes later, my doorbell rang for an Amazon delivery, setting off my two pugs barking ferociously.
I was up. I checked the time and realized I had slept for exactly 11 minutes. But the strange thing was, I felt great. The headache was gone. I felt awake, and I had none of the usual fogginess often I feel after a nap. I also had no trouble falling asleep that night.
What does it mean? Was this a fluke, or have I unlocked a secret napping power?
Of course, it’s not a special power, nor am I not the first to discover it. Sleep experts have long been recommending short naps to provide you with all of the benefits of napping without the negatives.
The truth about naps
According to WebMD, there are different benefits to varying lengths of naps. Their best bet for the most effective use of your time is a 10 to 20-minute nap. But even a six-minute nap, (yes, only six minutes!) can help you feel better.
The problem with longer naps is that sleep cycles are approximately 90 minutes. This gives us time to move through five stages of sleep.
When you nap, but you wake up in the middle of one of those stages without completing all five, you can end up feeling bad. If you’re in the middle of your deepest phase of sleep and your alarm goes off, you will wake up with sleep inertia.
It’s confusing, disorienting, and downright miserable. This is probably the reason I dislike naps. I wake up with sleep inertia, and I have trouble shaking it for the rest of the day.
Why a 10 to 20-minute nap is ideal
Most people spend about 5 to 10 minutes in the first stage of sleep. When you wake up anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes after falling asleep, you’re most likely in stage two.
Stage two is a light sleep that prepares your body for the deep sleep in stage three. In stage two, your brain waves and heart rate slow down, and your body temperature decreases. It’s easy to wake from this phase. If you stay asleep and enter stage three, you may have difficulty waking and find yourself groggy.
What are the benefits of a short nap?
According to a study from the journal Sleep, conducted in 2016, a ten-minute nap improved cognitive performance and increased alertness in participants for up to three hours.
In an older study from 2006, a 5-minute nap was found to have no benefits. A 30-minute was beneficial but caused sleep inertia. A 10-minute nap offered the same benefits as a 20-minute nap, but oddly enough, they lasted longer when the naps were 10 minutes as opposed to 20.
The 10-minute nap seems to be the ideal sweet spot for most people, although 20 minutes is still beneficial without any side effects. When you go up to 30 minutes, you need to have the time to complete a full sleep cycle at 90 minutes if you want to wake up feeling refreshed.
Short naps can:
- Improve creativity
- Relax and refresh your mind
- Boost cognition
- Reduce stress
Power nap tips
The ideal nap is when you fall asleep quickly and stay asleep for 10 to 20 minutes. But how do it?
Here are some tips on getting the best nap from the Sleep Foundation:
Don’t nap late in the afternoon. If you nap too close to bedtime, you may have trouble falling asleep at night.
Keep your sleeping space conducive to sleep. Try to nap in a comfortable space that is quiet, cool, and dark.
Practice relaxation exercises. Worries can keep you from falling asleep. Relaxation practices will help your mind relax.
Set an alarm. If your goal is a 10 to 20-minute nap, try setting your alarm for 30 minutes. If you sleep any longer than this, you may end up feeling groggy.
So when you get that fatigued feeling in the afternoon, try a short nap, you’ll probably feel much better when you wake up.
