Ah, the nap!
One of the great pleasures in life, unless it's executed poorly in which case you'll
wake up groggy, feeling worse than you did before the nap.
In this video, I'll show you how to nap like a pro.
What's going on guys, Dr. Jubbal, MedSchoolInsiders.com.
The elusive glory of the power nap has evaded fatigue students for centuries.
Too frequently, you either wake up feeling groggy and worse than you did before the nap
or you oversleep and that 20 minute nap becomes a two-hour nap.
The struggle is real.
We’ve all been there.
As a recently minted medical doctor, I’m unfortunately quite familiar with sleep deprivation
and the art of napping.
Let’s get straight to it.
First, the key and understanding napping is a familiarity with the science of the sleep
cycle.
The groggy feeling you get post-nap is called sleep inertia, and it is linked to being woken
during deeper stages of sleep.
It goes beyond feeling drowsy, and also makes you disoriented and limits your motor dexterity.
For surgeons, that’s a big no-no.
Power naps, however, exploit the lighter stages of sleep, specifically stages 1 and 2.
When you’re awake, your brain activity is characterized by beta waves, which are high
in frequency and low in amplitude, and more desynchronous than other wave types.
When relaxing but still awake, such as during meditation, our brain waves slow down, increase
in amplitude, and become more synchronous – these are alpha waves.
Stages 1 and 2 of sleep are chracterized by theta waves, which are even slower in frequency
and higher in amplitude compared to alpha waves.
In stage 2, theta waves are interspersed by sleep spindles and K complexes.
If you wake up during stages 1 or 2, you’re much less likely to experience sleep inertia.
Longer naps subject you to the delta waves of stages 3 and 4.
These are the slowest and highest amplitude brain waves.
This is the deepest part of sleep and is the most difficult stage to wake from, leaving
you drowsy and disoriented.
In rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep, the brain exhibits higher activity, with alpha,
beta, and desynchronous waves, similar to a wakeful state.
This is the state where dreaming occurs.
While deeper stages of sleep and REM are considered more restorative, getting into these states
during naps does not fare well.
Understanding the sleep cycle, it makes sense why we need to keep power naps short.
Napping for too long will subject you to deeper stages of sleep, and therefore sleep inertia.
I recommend experimenting with the duration that best suits you.
For me, I’ve found that 15 minutes is the sweet spot, yours will also probably be similar.
Start in the range between 10 and 20 minutes and experiment from there.
Twenty minutes is enough to get you into stage 2 sleep, which has been linked to boosts in
memory and creativity.
Crossing past 20 to 25 minutes is a very dangerous territory.
Not only are you more likely to wake up feeling groggy, but you’re also much harder to wake,
thus increasing the chances that your power nap will become a 3 hour slumber.
Now let’s go over 4 concerns you may have and how to address each one.
A very common concern with power napping is that you don’t have enough time to fall
asleep.
To address this, I have two recommendations: First, invest in some proper sleep gear.
Seriously, I bought an excellent sleep mask and ear plug combo for only $10 and my nap
game level is now over 9000.
And not just a regular sleep mask, but a contoured one that keeps the material off of your eyes.
It’s actually a total game changer.
You can thank me later.
Earplugs are also key.
By addressing external factors like ambient noise and light, you are recreating an ideal
sleeping environment, and your brain will be much more willing to relax into a power
nap.
Second, don’t worry about “falling asleep”.
Just the act of getting into bed with your sleep mask, ear plugs, and relaxing will slow
your brain down.
That’s enough to get several benefits, seriously.
My favorite naps are the ones where I feel like I haven’t even fallen asleep, and I
get up a couple minutes before my alarm goes off, feeling energized and ready to tackle
the rest of the day.
Over time, you will condition yourself to associate the sleep mask and ear plugs with
nap time, and you’ll find yourself falling asleep faster than ever.
At this point, you may have to tweak your power nap duration at this point, as you may
be falling into deeper sleep faster.
I now personally go closer to 12 or 13 minutes since the sleep mask and ear plugs are so
effective.
The next concern is over sleeping.
I am all too familiar with this.
When you’re sleep deprived, this is particularly dangerous as you’re even more tempted to
hit snooze.
To address this, you must minimize the chances of you actually hitting snooze.
So, don’t sleep with your phone or alarm right next to your bed.
It’s too easy to hit silence and next thing you know, it’s 3 hours later.
Rather, place your alarm on the other end of the room so that you have to get up to
turn it off.
Now while snoozing in the mornings isn't a good habit, snoozing during a power nap is
a much worse idea.
My tendency to oversleep and hit snooze after a rough few days in the hospital was cured
by this simple trick.
Concerned number three is that napping will disrupt your sleep later that night.
This is a completely valid concern, and is best addressed by being mindful of the time
that you take your nap.
If you take your nap later in the day, the amount of sleep debt required for natural
sleep onset that night may be disrupted.
For that reason, I recommend limiting your naps to no later than 3PM.
This will, however, depend on multiple factors, including the particular time that you go
to sleep.
If you are ok with sleeping later at night, then you can nap a little later into the day.
If however, you intend to sleep early, then you may want to stop napping even earlier
than 3PM.
I have found that when I’m postcall from the hospital or in other periods of sleep
deprivation, I can actually get away with naps later in the day without much detrimental
effect on my sleep later that night.
This is because the overall sleep debt is still quite significant.
I do not recommend sleep deprivation as it is not healthy but this is my experience.
The last concern is "what if I still wake up tired?" if you still aren't feeling as
awake and alert as you would like, I have two recommendations; first, try out coffee
naps.
I have mentioned them before in my other sleep videos and they work wonders.
The idea is simple, drink a cup of coffee or take a caffeine pill and then start your
power nap.
By the time you wake up, the caffeine has already been absorbed into your small intestine,
enter the bloodstream circulated and begun working its magic.
More specifically, adenosine from consumed ATP builds up in your brain over the course
of the day, and is one of the factors inducing fatigue.
Caffeine competitively inhibits this molecule, meaning it competes for the same receptors.
When caffeine is blocking the adenosine receptor, the adenosine molecules cannot carry out their
action and you are more alert.
For more on the science and tips on how to drink coffee effectively, check out my caffeine
consumption video.
Second, critically examine your sleep at night.
If you’re sleep deprived, it’s probably due to being inefficient during the day, resulting
in you not having enough time to sleep.
If you’re getting enough sleep but still feel fatigued, it could be a variety of things,
but a great place to start is by improving the quality of your sleep to feel more refreshed.
Six hours of good quality sleep feels WAY different than six hours of poor quality sleep.
I go over how to do exactly that in my sleep smarter video.
Now, I've also placed links to my favorite sleep hack items down in the description below.
From medical school to plastic surgery residency, I've experienced my fair share of sleep deprivation
and as a result, I've grown obsessed with hacking sleep and getting the most out of
the limited hours that we have.
If you want to learn more about sleep and more specifically, actionable advice on how
you can sleep more effectively, I've compiled high yield information in my sleep playlist.
Link is in the description below.
Let me know down in the comments what your experience of napping is.
Do you normally wake up groggy?
Have you tried shortening your naps?
How about coffee naps, have you tried them and do they work for you?
Thank you all so much for watching.
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Hit subscribe if you have not already and I will see you guys in that next one.