AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Possibly you consider napping as a luxurious. I actually do. However there are quite a lot of well being advantages to a day by day snooze if you happen to do it proper. Life Package’s Andee Tagle has extra on the easy steps to an ideal nap.

ANDEE TAGLE, BYLINE: The checklist of potential advantages from napping is a protracted one.

JADE WU: I wish to name it performance-enhancing drug with out the drug.

TAGLE: That is Jade Wu, a sleep drugs specialist and researcher based mostly in North Carolina, and creator of the ebook “Hey Sleep.”

WU: It is good for our emotion regulation. It makes us much less biased in the direction of destructive stimuli, extra versatile in our considering.

TAGLE: After which there are the bodily advantages, too.

WU: So athletes will usually use a nap to actually increase their efficiency, they usually’ll discover that they’ve extra energy, extra stamina. They really feel fatigue much less shortly. Napping actually can all-around profit our efficiency and our general well being.

TAGLE: However all naps will not be created equal. Ever woken up from a day snooze and felt much more drained?

WU: Groggy, you are dragging. You are like, the place am I? What time is it?

TAGLE: There is a time period for that discombobulated feeling – sleep inertia. And it occurs once you get up in the midst of deep sleep. So how will you ensure your nap will go away you feeling refreshed? It is so simple as C, E, B.

WU: We need to be constant, early and transient.

TAGLE: Let’s take every of these one after the other. First up, C for constant.

WU: And by constant, I imply, not haphazardly, generally early, generally late, generally, you understand, lengthy, generally brief.

TAGLE: Wu says take a web page out of some European international locations’ playbooks and decide a chosen time to relaxation.

WU: If you are going to have a siesta, do it on the identical time each day.

TAGLE: Then there’s E for early.

WU: Noon, early afternoon can be glorious.

TAGLE: Wu suggests aiming for a nap between midday and three p.m. in the course of the day to keep away from sabotaging your nighttime sleep. Or for the night time owls and shift employees on the market, which means napping a minimum of six to eight hours earlier than your major relaxation interval to present your self sufficient time to get sleepy once more earlier than mattress. Lastly, there’s B for transient. This one may be painful if you happen to’re a fan of a protracted, leisurely afternoon snooze, however…

WU: Naps which might be too lengthy are, initially, going to intervene together with your nighttime sleep, and we do not need that.

TAGLE: Taking brief naps additionally makes it extra seemingly that you will keep within the lighter phases of sleep and can be capable to keep away from that sleep inertia.

WU: We need to hold it at about half an hour, hour at most. In the event you set a timer for about 45 minutes, give your self a couple of minutes to get into sleep, you will in all probability find yourself sleeping about 30-ish minutes. And that is fairly protected. That is good.

TAGLE: From there, it is nearly making the time to take that break, which, after all, is simpler stated than achieved.

WU: It’d take quite a lot of apply at first as a result of we’re conditioned to be at all times multitasking, at all times productive, proper? It is actually arduous to truly simply relaxation for half-hour in the midst of the day, however it’s so essential.

TAGLE: And sure, that was relaxation you heard, stay awake. In the event you’re not the napping kind, Wu says there’s nonetheless quite a lot of profit in taking a daytime pause.

WU: If I go to sleep, nice. If I do not go to sleep, additionally nice. Even if you happen to simply form of hand around in a meditative state, do some mindfulness practices and even simply let your thoughts wander, these states are actually restful and actually particular and will be rejuvenating in an identical approach {that a} nap will be rejuvenating.

TAGLE: For NPR’s Life Package, I am Andee Tagle.

CHANG: And for extra Life Package, try npr.org/lifekit.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

Copyright © 2025 NPR. All rights reserved. Go to our web site phrases of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for additional info.

Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts might fluctuate. Transcript textual content could also be revised to right errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org could also be edited after its authentic broadcast or publication. The authoritative report of NPR’s programming is the audio report.