Name: How to Nap and NOT Wake Up Groggy | 4 Tips
Uploaded: 2020-09-17T19:40:14.000Z
Duration: 7 min 55 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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.

As a recently minted medical doctor, I'm unfortunately quite familiar with sleep deprivation

First, the key and understanding napping is a familiarity with the science of the sleep

The groggy feeling you get post-nap is called sleep inertia, and it is linked to being woken

It goes beyond feeling drowsy, and also makes you disoriented and limits your motor dexterity.

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

In rapid eye movement, or REM, sleep, the brain exhibits higher activity, with alpha,

beta, and desynchronous waves, similar to a wakeful state.

While deeper stages of sleep and REM are considered more restorative, getting into these states

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

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

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

And not just a regular sleep mask, but a contoured one that keeps the material off of your eyes.

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

Second, don't worry about “falling asleep”.

Just the act of getting into bed with your sleep mask, ear plugs, and relaxing will slow

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

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

I now personally go closer to 12 or 13 minutes since the sleep mask and ear plugs are so

When you're sleep deprived, this is particularly dangerous as you're even more tempted to

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

Now while snoozing in the mornings isn't a good habit, snoozing during a power nap is

My tendency to oversleep and hit snooze after a rough few days in the hospital was cured

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

If you take your nap later in the day, the amount of sleep debt required for natural

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

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

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

Subtitles ListPlay Video

How to Nap and NOT Wake Up Groggy | 4 Tips

fatigue

deprivation

recommend

description