How to Power Nap

Day 356 / 365

“Give me six hours to cut down a tree, and I’ll spend the first four sharpening my axe” — Abraham Lincoln

Although I have written more than one blog about how it is important to get a good night’s sleep, I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t sacrificed on my sleep time on some days when I have a deadline for a project. We would all face situations like these when you might have to pull off all-nighters. Usually, people use drugs, alcohol or even drugs to get through those. Not me though. I rely on power naps instead.

Power naps are short but effective periods of sleep, usually less than an hour. The idea being that it’s not the full hours of your sleep that help your mind refresh, it’s just that REM phases. With power naps, if done correctly, you can get more REM time quickly. It’s the best way to give yourself a boost without using caffeine or any other drugs.

How long should one power nap for? Basically as long as you can afford to do. 30 – 45 minutes is the sweet spot for me, but if you are short of time, even a 15-minute nap could help a lot. There is no bad time to take a power nap. If you are planning to work for say 3 hours from 12 to 3 in the morning, you would work much more efficiently if you fit in a 30 min power nap before that. You would more than makeup for those lost 30 minutes by your productivity boost due to the nap.

How do you power nap? It’s as simple as putting an alarm and going to bed. You could ask someone to wake you up if you are not confident about the alarm. If you are worried that you would not be able to fall asleep quickly, there are guided audio sessions online that you could use. I have been using this youtube video for the past 8 years. I always go to sleep listening to this, and wake up when it ends, even without an alarm.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — Make Peace a Priority