Has napping become a regular part of your life? Or is that just us...
A sleep expert has revealed the perfect amount of time to nap and given some helpful tips on how to master the skill of napping.
According to sleep expert Kiera Pritchard, it's important to get the technique of napping just right, as if you do it wrong, it can leave you feeling groggy and disrupt your night's sleep. Pritchard told the Mirror that while naps are great for you, it's important to not nap for too long.
She revealed that the perfect nap is 90 minutes, as this allows your body to sleep for one full sleep cycle, meaning you've gone through all the stages of sleep, leaving you feeling more refreshed and awake.
Napping for a full sleep cycle helps boost creativity and improve procedural and emotional memory, although she warns against taking 90-minute naps within seven hours of your bedtime to avoid affecting your night's sleep.
While 30-60 minute naps are tempting due to their short length, according to Pritchard, these naps will send you into the deeper third and fourth stages of sleep, leaving you feeling groggy and drowsy, impacting you the rest of your day.
However, she does recommend if you don't have enough time in your schedule for a 90-minute nap, a 10-20 power nap can help boost your energy and alertness.
We can definitely find a way to squeeze that into our schedule, anything for a nap tbh.
