The Power of Naps

"Sleep not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness, but, at a neurocognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap." - Dr Matthew Walker, UC Berkeley

By Patrick Driessen
People in Latin America, Southern Europe and Greater China have been doing it for generations: taking a relaxing nap during the day. Funny - but also sadly - enough in most other countries and in the work environment it is still not done to take a power nap. Hopefully that will change soon, because taking a nap at work has many benefits!

When I am on a high and am fully focused to finish a certain project, I'll spend as many hours as possible on it. To keep me going I take power naps: 15-20 minutes complete relaxation and I'll be revitalised and full of energy again. A power nap is a great investment of your time with a very high return in new energy and a (re)focused mindset!

A couple of years ago when I was taking a power nap under my own desk at my office in Amsterdam, a colleague walked by and saw me sleeping on the carpet floor underneath my desk. He thought it was hilarious, so he invited over 50 colleagues to my office who had a big laugh and took pictures of me. I didn't notice any of these visitors because I was fully asleep. When I woke up and they told me what had happened, I tried to explain the benefits of a power nap, but few would listen or understand....

Well.... maybe this new research from the University of California at Berkeley will help to change the perception of taking a power nap. The claim of the US scientists: a nap during the day improves the brain's ability to absorb new information; it boosts your leaning power! So who's been missing out?

This latest study suggests that the brain may need sleep to process short-term memories, creating "space" for new facts to be learned. In their experiment, 39 healthy adults were given a hard learning task in the morning - with broadly similar results, before half of them were sent for their siesta. When the tests were repeated, the nappers outperformed those who had carried on without sleep.

Checks on brain electrical activity suggested that this process might be happening in a sleep phase between deep sleep, and dreaming sleep, called stage 2 non-rapid eye movement sleep, when fact-based memories are moved from "temporary storage" in the brain's hippocampus to another area called the pre-frontal cortex.

Dr Matthew Walker, who led the study, stated on the BBC website: "Sleep not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness, but, at a neurocognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before you took a nap. "It's as though the e-mail inbox in your hippocampus is full, and, until you sleep and clear out all those fact e-mails, you're not going to receive any more mail. "It's just going to bounce until you sleep and move it into another folder."

What you need to know about the benefits of sleep and how a power nap can help you:

1. Less stress.
2. Increased alertness and productivity.
3. Improved memory and learning.
4. Good for the heart.
5. Increased cognitive functioning.
6. Get motivated to exercise.
7. Boost your creativity.
8. Make up for midnight tossing and turning.
9. Protect yourself from sleepiness.
10. Better health.

Are you convinced as well? Many of us could use a nice long nap many days but very few have (take) the time to get one in. Here are some useful tips to help you succeed:

• The first consideration is psychological: Recognize that you’re not being lazy; napping will make you more productive and more alert after you wake up.
• Try to nap in the morning or just after lunch; human circadian rhythms make late afternoons a more likely time to fall into deep (slow-wave) sleep, which will leave you groggy.
• In the hour or two before your nap time, eat foods high in calcium and protein, which promote sleep.
  
• Find a good place to nap: a clean, quiet place where passersby and phones won’t disturb you.
  
• Have caffeine right before you nap. This may sound counter intuitive since caffeine is a stimulant, but it won't kick in immediately. The caffeine has to travel through your gastro-intestinal tract, giving you time to nap before it kicks in. Taking a "caffeine nap" in which 200mg of caffeine are consumed right before a 20-minute nap will not only improve your performance, but it will also lessen how sleepy you feel once you wake up. Skip the caffeine, however, if it's late in the afternoon; you'll have a hard time falling asleep later in the evening.
  
• The best way to consummate coffee: Get a cup of coffee wherever you can get one. Add ice and stir until the coffee is nice and cold. Why the cold coffee works best is beyond me, but it seems to. Drink 1/2 a cup to a cup of the iced coffee and close your eyes for 20 minutes. The important thing is to rest and relax. You may even catch a 5-10 minute cat nap. Once the 20 minutes is over, the coffee is ready to do its job. You'll feel as refreshed and ready to go as if you had a 2 hour nap!
• When you're close to finishing your coffee (or your green tea, or your caffeine jello shot, etc.), set an alarm to go off in 15-20 minutes. This is only true if you are one of those people who will fall asleep immediately. To know how much time it takes for you to fall asleep, take a look at the clock when you are very tired and sense you will fall asleep soon at night, and subtract the time you got into bed from that. Generally, you should set your alarm for twenty-five minutes.
• Outside of your office/nap location door, which should be closed at this point, post up a sign that says you are power-napping and can be contacted at a certain time. Do a little bit of research and present the crucially of power-napping if needed.
• Try to darken your nap zone, or wear an eye shade. Darkness stimulates melatonin, the sleep- inducing hormone.
• Remember that body temperature drops when you fall asleep. Raise the room temperature or use a blanket.
  
• Get up as soon as the alarm goes off. Sleeping for any longer than 20 minutes will be counterproductive. A half hour can lead to sleep inertia, making you feel sluggish and more tired than ever.
• To make your office and nap life easier: create a business case for your leadership to invest in nap equipment! Links to examples are at the bottom of this post.
  

How long is a good nap?

• THE NANO-NAP: 10 to 20 seconds. Sleep studies haven’t yet concluded whether there are benefits to these brief intervals, like when you nod off on someone’s shoulder on the train.
• THE MICRO-NAP: two to five minutes. Shown to be surprisingly effective at shedding sleepiness.
• THE MINI-NAP: five to 20 minutes. Increases alertness, stamina, motor learning, and motor performance.
• THE ORIGINAL POWER NAP: 20 minutes. Includes the benefits of the micro and the mini, but additionally improves muscle memory and clears the brain of useless built-up information, which helps with long-term memory (remembering facts, events, and names).
• THE LAZY MAN’S NAP: 50 to 90 minutes. Includes slow-wave plus REM sleep; good for improving perceptual processing; also when the system is flooded with human growth hormone, great for repairing bones and muscles.

For more power nap details & tips: http://www.wikihow.com/Power-Nap
For power nap office solutions: http://www.metronaps.com/
For the Nappak Sleeping Cube: http://www.nappak.de/ 

Warm regards & success with your power naps,


Patrick