Balancing work and our personal lives can be hard at times, not to mention downright exhausting. That's why we all need to nap every now and then.
Unfortunately, part of being an adult is having a lot of responsibilites and it's often hard to shut off your brain even when you're trying to rest. Personally, whenever I try to take a nap, I end up lying there going over all the things I need to do before eventually falling asleep and waking up even more tired than before.
As it turns out though, there's actually a right and healthy way to take a daytime snooze. How? Check out five tips to napping like baby below:
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1. Give yourself a time limit. If you only have time for a short nap, it should only last for about 25-20 minutes. That amount of time allows you to rest without entering a sleep cycle and then interrupting it. If you are going for a longer nap, you should be sleeping long enough to complete a full sleep cycle, which is 90 minutes. Anything in between or longer will make you still feel tired when you wake up!
2. Try drinking coffee right before a nap. The caffeine won't kick in until around 20 minutes later, which will give you a boost of energy right around the time you wake up.
3. Suffer from insomnia? Don't nap. Research shows that the last time you were asleep will directly affect how long it takes you to fall asleep. So as tempting at it may be, taking a nap could make it even harder for insomniacs to go to bed as it'll take longer to fall asleep.
4. Only nap between noon and 4 p.m. That's the period of time that people will gain the most energy from. After that, napping could interfere with your regular nighttime sleeping.
5. If you're completely sleep-deprived, 10 minutes is better than nothing. It's a super short nap but even if you don't fall completely asleep, a five or 10 minute snooze can still be beneficial if you're feeling totally exhausted.
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