How to use the online timer
Twenty minutes is the length that refreshes without penalty. Sleep moves into deeper stages after roughly half an hour, and waking out of those produces the heavy, thick-headed feeling known as sleep inertia, which can take an hour to clear and leaves you worse off than before you lay down. Keeping the nap under that threshold is why the twenty-minute version is worth setting an alarm for.
When it happens matters nearly as much. Early to mid afternoon fits the natural dip in alertness that most people feel after lunch, whereas a nap at six in the evening borrows directly from the coming night and makes getting to sleep later noticeably harder. Anyone already struggling to sleep at night is usually better off skipping naps altogether for a while.
Reclining rather than lying flat out, in a room that is dim rather than fully dark, makes it easier to surface at the end instead of sinking further. Some people drink a coffee immediately beforehand, since caffeine takes about twenty minutes to take effect and arrives as the nap ends. If grogginess does turn up, daylight and a few minutes of moving about clear it faster than sitting still waiting for it to pass.
Common questions
Why not nap for an hour?
Because sleep moves into deeper stages after about half an hour, and waking out of those produces heavy grogginess that can take an hour to clear. Twenty minutes refreshes without that penalty.
When is the best time of day to nap?
Early to mid afternoon, which fits the natural dip in alertness after lunch. A nap in the early evening borrows directly from the night and makes getting to sleep harder.
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