Perfecting nap time is hard – do you go for a doze later and risk tossing and turning that night? Do you snooze just after lunch and wake up as the sun goes down, disorientated? Is it possible (as many of us have surely wondered) to put our head down on the desk of the meeting room during our lunch break for 20 minutes and return rejuvenated?
Well, luckily there is now a little guidance at hand as the perfect time to nap has been revealed: 3pm.
The reason for this comes down to our circadian rhythm (your body clock, basically), which dips around 3pm. Many people also experience post-lunch sleepiness or a lack of alertness, making it the perfect time to nap, The Independent reports.
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Apparently we should nap for between two and 30 minutes only, because any longer and we risk falling into the kind of deep sleep that sees us jolting awake at 9pm, having missed dinner.
MORE: 5 WAYS YOU CAN EAT YOUR WAY TO BETTER SLEEP
According to the latest report by the Sleep Council, almost three-quarters of Brits get less than seven hours’ sleep a night so taking a quick daytime nap could actually be a feasible option for combating the negative effects of this.
'When you’re sleep deprived, only bad things happen to your mood, concentration, health, and immune system,' Rajkumar Dasgupta, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, explained to Tonic.
But aside from this, studies have shown that naps make us more creative, improve our memory and make learning a new skill easier.
So now we know the logistics of napping it's just a matter of convincing our boss to let us do so!
