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Comment by jjcm | Hacker News Reader

Twenty minute naps leave me in a horrid state of disarray. It takes me about an hour to recover from the grogginess, so I tend to stay as far away from them as possible. I've experimented with time and location variations, but never with any success. It makes me sad, because I know tons of people who work naps into their day with fantastic results.

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This was a problem for me, too. I found that naps over 16 minutes knock me out as you describe, naps under leave me very refreshed and alert. I set my alarm for 16m in a quiet environment, 17m if I'm in a noisier environment or heightened state to give me a little extra time to fall asleep. Maybe some experimentation will help you find a time that works, good luck.

Other sources I've read suggest that around 15 minutes of sleep is optimal, and going over puts you into a different phase of sleep. Perhaps you have an easier time falling asleep than others.

When I try to nap, I'm pretty sure it takes ~5 minutes to doze off usually, but sometimes even more than that.

I'd heard the same about the 15 minute limit. I've experimented with more and less and have settled on 13 minutes, which works well for me, and I'm sure it varies among everyone. If I'm really sleepy (usually from lack of sleep), even a 5 minute nap clears almost everything out the mind.

I think that the key to going right into the nap, nearly as soon as your head hits the pillow, is to have a routine of using a timer, and get up quickly as soon as the time is up. Then, you won't lie there worrying that you'll oversleep or thinking you should be doing something else more important. Your mind is given permission to fall off, knowing it will come right back with the timer beeping.

I've found it helps to cover my head with another pillow, blocking out some light and noise. The head sandwich feeling is also relaxing and may contribute to my falling right out of consciousness in 10 seconds or less.

I have not tried this, but have read about this technique: When you start your nap, hold something in your hand that will make a noise if you drop it. As your body relaxes and you start to sleep, you will eventually relax your grip enough that the object will fall to the floor and wake you up. This happens at just about the ideal wake time for a short power nap.

Dali did this, but to put himself into the creative delirious state you're in right when you wake up in a daze.

That's a nice trick.

During meditation retreats, I often fell asleep during the first morning sessions. My teacher said that this was ok, but gave me comparable tip if I wanted to stay awake: meditate standing, when falling asleep, your body will always wake up in moments to stay balanced.

Each sleep cycle takes 90-110 minutes. Each cycle has 5 steps. So each step takes about 20 minutes. But if your cycle takes 90 minutes your first step will take about 18 minutes. So if you wake up after 20 minutes you will be in the first 2 minutes of the next step. And that's a bad moment to wake up.

As people already noticed, you have to play a little bit with the timing.

That's a well known rule of thumb: If you can fall asleep, but wake up groggy, decrease your total napping time by one or two minutes until you reach the spot where it works for you. 20-25 minutes is what you start off with, but the more you learn to fall asleep quickly, the further you have to chop away from that alarm clock to have it work.

Yeah, same here, as long as you don't over-nap then it works good, try with shorter ones they really help a lot.

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