The Science Of Napping & Hacks For Getting Your Best Nap Ever

If you're heading into the new year wanting a fresh start, MedExpress offers a simple way to explore weight management treatment from home. Start with our short online consultation to check your eligibility. There's no pressure or big resolutions, just small achievable steps at your own pace. If eligible, treatment is delivered discreetly with support from UK-registered clinicians throughout your journey. Visit medexpress.co.uk slash podcast to learn more. Ah, Daniel, out of all your decisions lately, choosing a Vanty West Coast first class is by far your best. Peace and space to work, oh, and that's service. You don't have to find the coffee. The coffee finds you. Oh, what's that? The smell of bacon and... Success, Daniel. Success. Arrive ready with the Vanty West Coast first class. Enjoy delicious, freshly prepared food and drink and service to your seat. Some journeys belong in first class. Book direct with the Vanty West Coast. On Big Lives, we take a single cultural icon. People like Jane Fonda, George Michael, little Richard. And we pull apart the story behind the image. And we do this by digging through the BBC's vast archives. Discovering forgotten interviews that change exactly how we see these giants of our culture. We're here for the messy, the brilliant, the human version of our heroes. I'm Emmanuel Jochi. I'm Kai Wright. And this is Big Lives. Listen to Big Lives wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Raj Punjabi Johnson, head of identity content at HuffPost. And I'm Noah Michelson, head of HuffPost Personal. Welcome to Am I Doing It Wrong? A show that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right. So Raj, I have to tell you, if I'm a little bit kind of zombie-esque today, it's because my sweet puppy, Jumi, who we've talked about before, he started to sleep in my arms. Like, we're spooning. I don't choose this. No. But it's so cute that I can't not let him do it. And Benji thinks he's just cold. I don't know what it is. No, he just loves you. But I get like an hour and a half of sleep. He's a big boy. He's 60 pounds. And so it just means I am, yeah, my life is a nightmare right now. I can totally relate because Griz, my kitten, has a new habit. He's a big boy too now. He sleeps on top of the covers, but in my crotch, like right at the angle, he feels very happy and safe there. And I refuse to move him because he's purring and sleeping. So I also have been struggling a little bit. And I think a lot of you can relate. Like who would move your little baby? No, inhumane. Yeah, wrong. But it makes sense in some weird sick way that this has been happening because today, I have to ask you, have you been napping Ron? Oh, for sure. The only times I've really ever tried to take a nap have been, you know, turned into like a seven hour nap. I don't, I'm not doing it right. I would like to learn. What about you? I don't do it anymore because I wake up from them feeling awful. Yeah. Like I feel like they're creature from the black lagoon trying to like drag myself out of the muck. And then I just have the muck on me all day. No, I absolutely can relate. But I'm like, am I doing something wrong? Am I just not a napper? So I want to find out. And we will. Today we have with us Dr. Sarah Mednick. She's a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine and author of two books, The Hidden Power of the Downstate and Take a Nap, Change Your Life. We're going to try. Sarah, thank you so much for being here with us. Thanks for having me. We love to start at the beginning. And so we're going to do just that. What is a nap, especially like scientifically, medically? Is it anytime that we are sleeping outside of normal sleeping hours? Or is there a real definition? Yeah, I think it's not been particularly defined by anybody other than maybe me, because I wrote a book about it. So I thought I had to define it. But also right now there is a question by the National Sleep Foundation is also trying to define what a nap is. And in general, I think that one could say it is a daytime sleep period, that there's nocturnal sleep and then there's time in the day that you might sleep. And I think that that would be considered a nap. And timing wise, duration wise, I think it would be anything past five minutes and then up to three hours. But within that structure, I think, of course, if you are taking a disco nap before you go out to party or you're working an all nighter shift and you're allowed to nap at work or in preparation for something, it doesn't really matter what time of day it is. If you're taking a short sleep episode, I think that we could call that a nap. It's just that there's this kind of distinction between nighttime sleep and daytime sleep. And as a person aspiring napper, I want to know what, because I feel like successful people nap, what do naps do for us? What benefits can they have? Napping is sleep. So if you think about what does sleep do, it's the same stuff. So if you, there's all sorts of health benefits to napping, balancing between your autonomic nervous system, your sympathetic arousal, which is that fight or flight response, the second that you're going to sleep, you're actually tuning down that fight or flight sympathetic arousal and you're tuning up all of the healing restorative processes that occur during sleep, which is run by your parasympathetic system, which is the rest and digest system. So all of those things include cardiovascular benefits, you're reducing your heart rate, you are slowing down blood flow so there's less of a rush in the brain, you're reducing your stress levels. It's really good for metabolism. You're balancing out all of your, your hunger and satiety hormones so that you don't have these kind of weird levels of hunger at different times of day. So there's metabolic benefits, there's cardiovascular benefits. And then of course, in my lab, what we study is all the cognitive benefits. There's benefits to memory, creativity, emotional processing, executive function, you know, kind of working memory, attention, that kind of frontal lobe stuff. So everything that you think about, that you like about sleep, you can also get from a nap. Is it like, but less so because you're sleeping less? Or are you, are you saying that the benefits can be just as good from a nap as from getting a night, a good night's sleep? Well, my second paper on napping, the title was a nap is just as good as a night. For perceptual learning. So weirdly, the thing about nighttime sleep is that in order to get the big, you know, the biggest central aspects of it, you need to have slow wave sleep, which actually is at the very beginning of the night, you've got this big bolus of slow wave sleep at the beginning of the night. And then you've got to have REM sleep. That's the other rapid eye movement sleep. That's the other stage of sleep is really important. And that occurs in the morning. And so interestingly, you kind of have to sleep an entire night to get the full benefits of a night of sleep. But in a nap, curiously, there are some times of day where you actually have equal amounts of slow wave sleep and REM. And that's usually when people get tired, you know, it's between one and three o'clock. And it's usually when CS does occur historically. And that nap, if you nap for like 90 minutes at that time, you're going to get equal amounts, about 20% slow wave sleep, 20% REM sleep. And there's a bunch of research, including my own that's shown that a nap at that time can actually have the same magnitude of benefits as a full night of sleep. Wow. I love that. Yeah. I need that in my life. Okay, now this is the perfect time to dive into the anatomy of a nap, right? Because 90 minutes, I'm really happy you said that because everywhere, every corner of the internet says your nap needs to be 20 minutes. And if you do it for 19 minutes or 21 minutes, you're screwed. How much truth is there in this? Because it takes me 45 minutes to go to sleep. So a 20 minute nap doesn't feel realistic to me. Please tell us about that. Yeah. So any of this kind of stuff, I know that there's something other like a 27 minute nap or something, you know, these are just data points that come out of averages, right? So there's nothing about 19 or 21 or anything. The reason why we talk about, you know, the different times of durations of nap that could be more beneficial is we have to get into the stages of sleep that occur when you start to fall asleep. But should I go there? Yeah, let's do it. Okay. So right when you're falling asleep, you're going into this very short transition period and they're not very excitingly named. They're different stages of sleep. So stage one sleep is the stage of sleep where your kind of your body is just beginning to relax and you have these myoclonic jerks that can kind of suddenly, you know, and people start to do twitching and things like that. That's all in that stage one sleep. And then, and that lasts for about five, two percent of five minutes of your nap. And then you go into what's called stage two sleep. Now, stage two sleep is really excellent sleep. It is sort of this, it's 60% of all of your sleep. So it's the state stage of sleep that all of the other sleep stages are kind of bathing in. You can go, it's a transition stage of sleep, or you can go into deeper stages of sleep from stage two sleep, but you can also go into more lighter stages of sleep, like REM sleep through stage two. So you're always kind of passing through stage two sleep. And there are some very important features of stage two sleep, which is it's really where you start to lose consciousness of, you know, time around you, but you can still have a little bit of feeling of, you know, hearing things going on around you or feeling like you're still attached to your thinking. So your brain hasn't totally dislodged itself from consciousness. And then you have these specific things that occur in the brain that are very important for memory and they're called sleep spindles. And they're these little quick shout outs from an area of the brain called the thalamus. And when you see a sleep spindle in the EEG, right, this is the electrodes that we place on the head to look at the electrical activity occurring in the brain. You know that the brain is trying to reactivate memories, trying to recall things and trying to sort of rehearse what it knows and deal with your memories at that time. If you think about a 90 minute cycle, that is what a full cycle of sleep is, right? So you're going to go like two to five minutes of stage one sleep, and then you're going to go into what's called stage two sleep for about half an hour. So that first 30 minutes of your 90 minute nap is going to be mostly stage two sleep. The reason why everyone says to take a 20 minute nap is because that stage of sleep is the safest bet in terms of you still get sleep and you get nice sleep spindles and you get this really nice alertness quality, the power nap, all the benefits of the power nap, but you're not getting into what we call slow wave sleep because slow wave sleep occurs in the second 30 minute chunk of a 90 minute cycle and slow wave sleep is really great for deep processing. You know, this is where you have protein synthesis that you could not at all do. And, you know, this is when you're going to a slight kind of torpor, your body temperature goes to an all time low. It's like the factory engine just completely turns down, right? And it's very like power saving mode, right? And you have these things called slow waves where the entire brain is synchronized to this very, very slow rhythm. And literally you have periods of this rhythm where the brain is not active at all and then suddenly it active activates together and then it gets super quiet and it activates together and it's super quiet. So these are these slow waves and we call and my second book, The Power of the Downstate is all about this idea that you have this very important restorative processes that go on in these slow waves. And the downstate is that period of that deep rest. Sarah, is this the stage that I'm like drooling in? Like that good, good sleep? Yes, this is the drooling stage. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And you don't really have, you have some kind of mentations, but you don't really remember them and they're not very fanciful. So that's, and that really is where like the deep memory processing occurs. You know, you have increased in growth hormone with slow waves, your heart rate, all the parasympathetic activity really is amplified during that time. So all the restorative work for your brain and body occurs at that time. And so that is the second 30 minute chunk, right? And once you're kind of satisfied that quality of your need for slow wave sleep, you pass through stage two again and then into what we call rapid eye movement sleep or REM sleep. And that is a completely different brain state, totally different body state. Your brain is suddenly extremely active. The EEG looks like waking activity because your brain is so active. In fact, it used to be called paradoxical sleep. Because it looks so much like waking. And the only way that you could tell that people were asleep was because their muscle tone was completely flat. So when you're in REM sleep, you're paralyzed. And that's a good thing because it's also when you have all your crazy, fanciful dreams. Yeah, you don't want to be thrashing around. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to be running through windows or thinking that, you know, you need to kill somebody who's like, you know, chasing you or something like that. Right. Which some people with REM behavior disorder actually do. So, so when you're waking up from REM sleep, right? And you're done with your 90 minute nap. This is where it's really easy to wake up from REM sleep because your heart rate is really high, your brain activity is really high. It is so similar to waking that when you wake up, you're just like, oh, that was fun. Like I just had REM, you know, and then you just kind of go off with your day. But when you wake up from slow wave sleep, since it's basically like being in a hibernation state, it's very hard to wake up from that. Right. So, so the advice about the 20 minutes is sleep up until you get, you know, before you get into slow wave sleep. But what they don't say is that you can also just sleep through slow wave sleep and wake up at 60 minutes or anywhere between 60 and 90 minutes. And then you're golden. So if you can do a little math and, you know, calculate the different cycles, that's what you want to concentrate on. Cause you're right. I've never heard anyone say, okay, if you're not going to do 20, do 90. Yeah. That seems great. Yeah. I mean, not everybody has time for that. I mean, you could do, I would say do, you know, 20 to 30 or 60 to 90. Because even if you got like two minutes of REM sleep, that would be great. Yeah. This is actually really clarifying for me because, you know, our next question was about why I don't feel rested when I take a nap. I found this quote on Reddit that someone, it's like nap Reddit. Why don't I feel good from napping? And the person said, if I take a nap, I have to call off all my responsibilities for the day I can't function after a nap. I wake up in a different dimension. That's me. And I think I'm waking up in that deep sleep and literally I look like a muppet that's like, doesn't know where she is. And now that makes sense. Okay. Is that possibly happening? That is the thing. So when I published the first book, it was after I had done my dissertation and we got so much press around this dissertation about napping that I thought, oh, I should write a book about it because I was so hungry for this. And it wasn't until after the book came out that I started hearing from people who don't like to nap. And then they came out in droves and the people who don't like to nap don't like to nap with such a passion that I've never, I've never heard of anything physiological that people hate more. That's right. People either love napping like me, I love napping, or they hate napping and they feel like they want to murder when they wake up and they just are so upset and nauseous and nauseous. Yeah, everything. So then we started doing some research on this question about, you know, habitual versus non habitual nappers. And it turns out we had asked two questions of this really big study that we did with my old grad student, Elizabeth McDevitt. And she basically recruited a bunch of people who said that they were, you know, bona fide nappers and people said that they never nap. And we had one question, which was, do non nappers get the same benefits that we've seen, you know, across many studies we've shown own naps, you know, is as good as a night, right? So do non nappers get that benefit? We'd never looked at, we'd never separated our data like that. So we wanted to get them, you know, adjust a regular nap study, get them in the lab and see, you know, who benefited more or did they benefit the same? And then we asked the question of, well, could we train people to nap? And so we gave them like a month of nap training and then we retested them to see if they got any more benefit. Well, the first question that we were shocked to hear, to see really is that non nappers did not show any memory benefits from a nap. Yeah. So I was really surprised by that. Like I thought, oh, this is just obviously so universal because I liked to nap. So I thought everybody would like to nap. And it turns out, no, and it's about getting back to those spindles. It looks like the spindles in with nappers are actually really helpful for memory. And the spindles were lower in non nappers and they were also not very helpful for memory. So daytime sleep for non nappers did not seem to really help people's memory in the same way that a different nappers. And so we thought, well, maybe it's just because they hadn't adapted to it. And if we train them, we'll be able to see a growing benefit, maybe not as large with just a month, but maybe some change. So we had them napping three times a week and we made sure that they were napping and we have them were active graph watches to make sure that they were napping at the time. And we had them doing sleep diaries to record everything. And then we just kept looking at whether they would have any benefits, you know, cognitively speaking, and they never did. Wow. Yeah. Shocking. I know. Weird. I don't know how to wrap my head around that. Yeah. I think that there is, there may be some pretty strong genetic differences, particularly in terms of circadian rhythm. So if you're somebody who can sleep during the day, I think that you may have a different circadian composition than if you are not a sleeper during the day. Right. If you're not a sleeper during the day, the idea of sleeping during the day just seems like, why would I do that? That it's not in my system to do that. Whereas if you're kind of built for it, you are able to kind of go in and out of these short pieces, you know, short bits of unconsciousness and wake up and feel great. And so my, I haven't, you know, followed through with these studies to see if they're, because it would be a lot of work. But the genetic, I think that there must be something genetically different. It may not be that you get it from your parents, hereditary genetics, but there may be something genetics in terms of the programming of your circadian rhythm. Okay. I have two things to say. Yeah. First of all, you have such a cool job. I know. Like I am not good at science and I could never do your job, but I love the idea of your job. Aren't you imagining like a kindergarten classroom with sleeping bags though? Yeah. Or just like rows of bunk beds. Super cool job. But so are you saying then there are some people that just are not going to get any benefit from, benefits from naps and they just shouldn't even try to take naps? I think that there's a lot of people who wish that they were nappers because they hear about all these benefits. And then, and then if they try to take a nap and they feel like crap and then they keep trying and then they feel like crap because they feel like crap, I think that that is a waste of time. Yeah. And so if, you know, like everybody's got to figure out what is actually working for them and not necessarily listening to, you know, these general experts that tell you what to do. Like I really think that napping is, is, you know, maybe 50% of the population should try napping. And if it works for them, great. And you'll know it when you, when it works for you. But the second book, the power of the downstate, the whole point of that book was to say, you need to rest, but you don't necessarily, it doesn't need to look the same. Right? Like, you know, rest is so many different things. Rest could be exercise. Rest could be taking a walk in nature. Rest could be doing deep breathing. You need to have that parasympathetic boost. And some people can get it with napping. Yeah. But there's a million other ways that you can be getting it. I love the permission. It's such a motif in the show. I love that, you know, you don't need to be a napper to be successful, but if it works for you, it works for you. Okay. I just have a follow up to that. Sometimes I will have a moment to lie down for 20 to 30 minutes and shut my eyes and I don't fall asleep. Or I'm just like, you know, almost meditative. And I feel very daydreaming. Yeah. Yeah. I have, and I don't fall asleep, but I'm resting and I feel very refreshed after that 20 to 30 minutes. Can we get nap like benefits from just resting? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I think that, you know, whether you can get the same sort of memory consolidation effects. So think about this, like you learn something and then if you're, you know, if you're thinking about, you know, maybe you're on a sports team or you're playing an instrument or, you know, you're trying to memorize something, you can rehearse it during waking. Okay. Or you can rehearse it during sleep. And those are, those are the two times where you would be practicing, right? You would either be practicing, you'd be lying there daydreaming, practicing. If you're a dancer, you might go through imagining all the different moves or practicing the piano in your head or, you know, playing pool or whatever it is that you're doing. You can do that in your waking time or you can dream about it during sleep. Right. So that's, that's the, that is the way we would get better on something is to have it reactivated. I mean, that's sort of, you know, what science is telling us is that the brain reactivates the exact same sequence over and over and over again, and then we get better. So it does look like if you reactivate it during sleep, there may be some deeper, stronger, long-term connections that are being made that are more complex. There's more connections between this new memory that you're trying to form and all of the other memories that you have in your life. So there may be some added benefit to getting into that deeper sleep reactivation than if you just do it lying there while you're awake. So I'm not going to say that, of course, wake is just the same as sleep because I don't think it is. But there's so much benefit to lying down or sitting up, whatever it is, and just doing deep breathing. Yeah. Just, just getting yourself out of the grind and the rat race and just getting your body to switch into that parasympathetic mode is so important to do, whether it's by meditating, whether it's by taking a walk in nature, you know, and or just, you know, getting out with your dog, whatever it is that you're doing, holding somebody's hand and having a deep conversation, any of these things that make you feel relaxed and safe and that you can kind of breathe nice and slow, those are all incredibly important for our physiology and for our well-being. So I think that for sure, what you're doing is great for you. If you're heading into the new year wanting a fresh start, MedExpress offers a simple way to explore weight management treatment from home. Start with our short online consultation to check your eligibility. There's no pressure or big resolutions, just small achievable steps at your own pace. If eligible, treatment is delivered discreetly with support from UK registered clinicians throughout your journey. Visit medexpress.co.uk slash podcast to learn more. I can't believe it. Max has asked me to move in with him. I mean, you practically live with each other already, but that's great. Did you hear that, Joe? Yes. Thanks for letting us know. I see you've updated your universal credit claim. Now you're going to be living together. If you're telling other people about a change in your circumstances, tell us too to avoid a penalty. Search Tell DWP. Ah, nature. Always calling it just the right time. When life plays dirty, water wipes. Now two times stronger and even softer, ready for whatever happens back there. Available online and in store. Water wipes, cleans, cares and protects sensitive skin. Two times stronger material than previous water wipes. I want to say that I wish when I was sleeping, I was dreaming about something that was fun and useful to rehearse. I had a dream the other night that I was doing literally an Excel spreadsheet and I couldn't get it to work. And I'm like, this is what I'm dreaming. I mean, I know it's a stressorine. We're going to actually do an entire episode about dreaming coming up soon. But I was like, this is this is useless. You don't know if it's useless. I beg to differ. Dreams are very useful. OK, but I wish it were then. OK, then I wish it were more exciting. I wish I weren't doing Excel spreadsheets in my dreams. But that's a me issue. If we are getting bad sleep at night for whatever reason, I was telling Raj earlier when we did the intro that my dog has decided to sleep in my arms lately and it's adorable. But I am getting hold of this. How big is your dog? He's 60 pounds. He's a big boy. He's a big boy. Yeah. So let's say I'm not getting as great of sleep at night. If I nap during the day, am I making up for that? Or am I just getting up? Are you making up for that? Or are those two completely different things? Yes. So for sure. There's there's the when people have sleep problems, one of the first things that sleep doctors tell them is, oh, no napping. And I always think that that's that's a real pity because if you're not sleeping at night and you're not sleeping in the day, you're not sleeping. And the sleep that you get in the nap is just as good as the sleep that you get at night. OK. So the idea of kind of, you know, imagining that there's something bad about napping to me seems really wrongheaded because it could save your life. Like if you're falling asleep at the wheel, if you're not functioning during the day, you really you need to take a nap. This is this is and it's also, you know, there's nothing worse than waking up in the morning and be like, oh, I slept so bad, I'm going to have the worst day. Yeah. But if you say to yourself, I slept so bad, but I have like this half hour period or an hour period, you know, I'm going to take my lunch break and go to my car and nap or after work between this thing and the other thing I'm going to do, I'm going to get there early and nap in my car. And that's my strategies. It just feels so great and it changes your whole day because you realize, like, I'm not going to suffer. I'm going to replace my lost sleep with daytime sleep. And then you're it's like you're done. You know, you don't need to like over dramatize the sleep problem that you had because so much of these kind of feeling bad during the day is in your head. Yeah, I kind of love that if any of her students, you know, are looking for they'd be like, where's Dr. Mednick? She would be napping in her car. Yeah. Exactly. Go check her car. OK, so you told us a little bit about when a good time to nap is like maybe between one and three p.m. Can you tell us about like what the ideal conditions are for a nap? Like how should the lighting be? Should be lying down or sitting up? What should the temperature be like? There they're on Shark Tank. There's this new thing where there's an eye mask that you wear that has like a timer on it that'll wake you up. So like people are looking for ideal nap conditions. Can you tell me what you know? Yeah, so it's funny because when I saw the title of your podcast that you're doing it wrong, I was like, that's a terrible title. I hate it, especially just for sleep, but not for anything else. I'm sure there's many ways that like people are doing things wrong. But the thing about sleep is that it's such a psychological process. And so the second you feel like you're doing it wrong, you're not going to be able to sleep, right? So so I think that there's something about what whatever you're doing, just do it. Just keep doing it. And there's no wrong if you're getting to sleep. So in that way, I don't want to like have this idea that when people hear this, they think, oh, I need to do it this way. And if it doesn't work that way, then I'm doing it wrong. Right. I would rather have it be that, well, this is the way I do it and it works for me. And so screw you, you know, kind of, you know, whatever it is that whatever it is that it works for individuals, they should stick with that because everyone has their own bio rhythm. They have their own way of sleeping. They have all the different accoutrements that they like to sleep with at night. And the same thing goes for napping, right? You know, there's people who need to like, you know, Winston Churchill was famous for like taking these naps, we had to take off all his clothes, get into bed and just have a full, you know, naked sleep in the middle of the day. It's really the best sleep. Right. I mean, that would be great if we all had that. But like a lot of us work and, you know, we don't we're not going to get naked in a Starbucks when we're sitting in one of their chairs. So so I think it's really just a matter of like, well, what works for you? You know, like, can you just sit in your car, put the seat back a little bit in China, where it's very, very big napping culture. The students, you know, have like a two hour lunch period and they're supposed to have a short half hour lunch and then they just put their heads down on the desk. And the kids just sleep there in the classrooms, right? So so they, of course, nighttime sleep is different. There's many, there's sort of more of an understanding of, you know, you want to be a cool room, you want to have a good blanket, you want to feel safe, locked doors and all dark and no sound and all those kind of things that we tell people. But naps are kind of. They're more of a free for all. You know, it's really, you can nap with sun in your eyes. You can nap on a park when you, you know, you couldn't sleep if you had light in your eyes at night, right? You would drive you crazy. But naps have this highly adaptable space where you can really just do whatever you want as long as it's getting you to sleep. I have to say, this is so wonderful because I'm thinking about the only time in my life I've had great naps was when I was with six of my girlfriends in Havana a few years ago, we had gone on vacation. I love it. And it was so lovely. Our cottage was in the midst of a lot of young people and they're playing very loud salsa music all day. And we would come back from the beach and it would be blaring salsa music. And I fell asleep in two minutes. Wow. Every day. I couldn't never. It was bright sunlight and loud salsa music. And I went to sleep like this and woke up 30 minutes late. That's what you just made your nap tradition like blasted salsa music and had like an old spectrum light on your face. But I'm sitting here asking you like how dark does it need to be? But it's very personal. Yeah. Maybe I'm not to music. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. I am reborn. Here's my question. If we know that we don't want to hit that stage of sleep that's going to be hard to get out of. Is it ideal then to set an alarm for a certain amount and not just try and do free napping where we just lay down and we wake up when we wake up? Is it better to do it for 30 minutes? Absolutely. I mean, I really think that the alarm. I know there's people who are like, oh, I never use an alarm and there's something sort of superior about them. But I think that really alarms are so important, particularly for napping because it just gives you the safety and security to know you're not going to miss any meetings. You're not going to oversleep into slow wave sleep. Like whatever it is that you want to get out of your nap. I think the alarm is great and I'm a full supporter. Is there a better alarm when we want to wake up than other alarms? I've always wondered about this. Like now iPhones give you 45,000 alarm tones. They're all jarring. They're all jarring. Yeah. But I'm always like, when we're waking up from a nap, is there a better way to wake up or does it not matter? Well, I mean, you know, what's nice about the phone, right, is that you can actually choose music too. Like I used to have this great Kim Deal song that was really just so, so relaxing to kind of have it slowly, slowly, slowly wake me up. And then it's somehow like left my phone. I don't know why and now I have this really jarring alarm. But I think that it's, it is a really great thing. If you know that there's a certain sound that you'll be pleased by, you know, that's I think choosing pleasure that is like, oh, I'm going to feel so nice and cozy and warm and lovely, you know, to have this be the thing that wakes me. I think that's a great idea. I mean, of course, like a teenager, you know, typically probably needs to have like a really blaring alarm, something that is just awful. But as you get older, you can kind of, you know, be more thoughtful and I think do do what you like. Yeah. Is there anything we should be doing right after a nap that would be beneficial? Like splashing water on our face or, you know, there's a lot out there about getting yourself to a sun lit place. You can like wake up. Yeah. I mean, that is true for morning as it is for night, right? So or a nap. So the sun is the best kind of rooster like call for your circadian rhythm. And the particular light that you get from the sun, this all-spectrum very blue light is what is keeping your brain in on mode and in alert mode. So it's a great idea to get outside. It's a great idea to, you know, move your body around, you know, either slowly or just, just remember, you know, if you're waking up from slow wave sleep, right? Your pulse is significantly slower, right? Your blood flow has slowed down. Your thinking is actually like the brain signals are traveling in a much slower, more synchronized way. And, and, you know, when we're awake, our blood flows fast. Our heart rate is responding really quickly. It's able to, you know, get recruit oxygenated blood to all the different muscle groups that you need in your brain. And your thinking is very fast in your multitasking, right? So it is the exact opposite state when you're in slow wave sleep, like in every possible way, right? It's closest to death that you'll ever come. So you have to really think about, like, if you wake up from a deep sleep, that is a different experience than waking up from, say, stage two sleep or REM sleep, right? Where you could kind of just go off and jump into your day and, you know, do all those active things. So you, you kind of want to check in. How do I feel? What did I just experience? You know, how, and, and I think that the reason why people who hate napping, you know, when they wake up from sleep is because, you know, there isn't a strategy, a good strategy for how to deal with waking up the body in this very slow, soft way where, where the heart rate will slowly increase and the blood flow will increase as well. And so, you know, and that you can kind of move into the jarringness of daytime with, with a little bit of ease. So I think, you know, for that, maybe do a little bit of stretching, you know, get the blood moving a little bit, don't do any fast movements and drink some water, you know, do some breathing that kind of, you know, something that, something that just helps you transition into waking life. You know, my, my kitten, when he wakes up from a really long sleep, he will get up and stretch and then he'll take another little light snooze. He'll like just, just like hang out there for like a minute. He's waking up. We joke about it, but that's kind of lovely. I like that. Like he transitioned in and then he'll be up and running around. But I think he has the right idea. He woke up from deep sleep. He's like, I need a minute. Let me transition. I'm going to start doing that. Yeah. I think so. I think that we really need to think a lot about transitions. I think that that's, you know, like it's an interesting thing. You know, in life in general, I think that the transition state is the hardest place across the lifespan, right? Like transition between adulthood and childhood, like that puberty, transitional adolescent is just painful, right? And then transitions, you know, in the women's menstrual, like I think about this a lot transition between the high hormone state to suddenly no hormones and menses like that pre-mencies thing is really can be quite annoying. And then the transition and menopause, right? Like transition to menopause for women can just be it's a lot, right? There's a lot of changes occurring and you really are, um, you have to, you have to be gentle with yourself. And understand that this is not, you're not in a stasis. You're in a, you're in a change place and that change place needs to have a lot of, um, consideration. I think that's beautiful. That's like very philosophical. I think every transition from relationships or whatever. Yeah. Right. Trade, right, right. Okay. This is a probably a stupid question. I say this a lot on this show where something just comes to be, but I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you anyways. There are no stupid questions. Yeah. Well, just wait until you hear it. Let's say I'm working on my ex ex self spreadsheets and I'm very tired. Would you recommend that I take a 20 minute nap or that I have a cup of coffee? I'm like, I have another 30 minutes to get done here, but I'm just exhausted. What do you think is better? I recommend taking a five minute nap. Oh, okay. Tell me about that. Talk about transition. The biggest transition that you have every day is the transition from wake to sleep. It is such a huge physiological change that like you go from, as I said, high heart rate, you know, fast breathing rate, um, tense muscles to suddenly everything slowing down and then your sympathetic arousal system just goes down and your person with it, it goes up. Um, that transition, just being within that for just five minutes and having just a little bit of stage one sleep and just a touch of stage two sleep can actually reassert your waking alertness state. So, so when you start falling, like it's happening exactly the same thing happened to me. I think it was yesterday. I was at the computer and I just closed my eyes and I found myself asleep for probably five minutes and I woke up and I'm like, okay, I'm ready. I can, I can go back to it. Um, so I highly recommend trying these very, very, very, very short naps. And this is also something that, um, uh, Edison, I think it was Edison, um, was the, he talked about this, that he had this idea, he had this way of doing this where he would have something in his hand, like a spoon or some, you know, metal balls or whatever. And he would hold them in his hand and when he would go atonic, right? Like, you know, your muscles become paralyzed. He would drop, uh, what was in his hand and it would clatter to the floor and he'd wake up. Um, and he felt that that was a very creative time for him. Was, it was this hypnagogic dreaming time, right? When you're right as you're falling asleep and you start to have these hypnagogic dreams and this has always been this kind of question. Like, well, is this time of this kind of sort of stage one, uh, dreamy state that you kind of have these like imagerism and stuff like that. Is that helpful? And a woman in Paris, uh, uh, sleep researcher in Paris, um, she has done this research now and she's shown that these, these like five minute naps where you're literally holding something in your hand and then you let it drop when you finally lose consciousness. People see a massive increase in creativity on creativity tests where, you know, it's either just stay awake and try to be more creative or have one of these five minute naps. She shows that that is a very creative space. So there's a lot of mystery going on in how all of this works. Like we really don't understand the mechanisms of it, but we do, you know, we can measure that there are benefits. So I would, you know, if you take caffeine, um, the problem there is that what if it's like four o'clock and then you won't be able to sleep at night and all that kind of stuff, right? So, so having a five minute nap is not going to impact your nighttime sleep. Um, but it could have just this really great reset. It could give you better creativity. It could just, um, to me, it's, it's a, yeah, it's a no brainer. Okay. Brain science is so cool. I love that. Um, speaking of caffeine, there's, you know, there's this trend that's been talked about for like the last five to 10 years about the coffee nap that allegedly if you drink a coffee and take a nap right after that, you'll have this great nap and wake up refreshed. And I feel like there's some science behind it. Can you tell me what you know? Uh, is there science behind it? I mean, if there is, I'm not familiar with it. Is it real? Does that sound like it would work? I mean, people talk about it a lot. And I always get asked about it. Uh, I don't know. I mean, to me, it has the same problems of caffeine afternoon at all. Right. Because caffeine afternoon after the, after, you know, the 12 p.m. When I say noon, um, is, you know, if, if caffeine is in your system for like four to six hours, it can definitely affect your nighttime sleep. Okay. So these naps that you take, say at three o'clock and you have a sip of, you know, you have some espresso and then you take a nap and then you are supposed to be, uh, you know, help is supposed to, the caffeine is supposed to help you with waking up and not sleeping so long. And then you're going to be alert. Like, why don't, why, why do you even need the caffeine? You just took a nap. Yeah. And then you're not, and then you're not getting, you know, then you have this problem with having afternoon caffeine. So it just doesn't seem, it's, it seems like a bio hack or brain hack that just feels like it's gone awry. Like it's trying to put together like kryptonite and protein powder or something like that. It's like maybe just choose one. Yeah. It's a Red Bull and vodka situation. Like don't do. Right. You don't need to. Yeah. Also it would never work for me because this has to be psychosomatic, but when I drink coffee, it goes like straight into my veins and my spirit. So like I wouldn't fall asleep. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't fall asleep either. If I knew I had been having caffeine. Yeah. Yeah. There's a huge placebo effect with caffeine. Absolutely. I'm doing cartwheels. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any tips for falling asleep? Like let's say we want to take a nap or you can be like, if you can't fall asleep, then you don't need to take the nap. You know, what are your thoughts on that? There's one that is this progressive muscle relaxation technique. And I did a recording of it. It's in my, it's in the power of the downstate book. And it's just a, you know, you're going from whatever you started at the top or the bottom of your body and you just clench, you know, on the inhale and then you deep relax on the exhale, each body part. And you just progressively go through all the different muscle groups. And this we've shown it increases sleep onset time by 10 minutes, which is great in a nap, you know, because that's really, you want, that's the kind of advantage that you need, you know, for napping because you don't really have a whole night, right? So you need to really try to, um, and, and tendons on average, right? So there's people that got even more benefits from it. So that's one that I really like. Um, and it's just this breathing and muscle tension relaxation process. Um, there's another one that I also really like that's also in the power of the downstate. Um, and it is, oh, I forgot what it's called, but it's basically that you are breathing, you're, you're bringing warmth and heaviness to different body parts. And what it's really doing is just increasing blood flow to those body parts, but it's really moving the, the thinking mind, you know, that's getting all the blood flow and taking all that blood and moving it into your belly or your legs or your arms or your erogenous zones. Visualizing, visualizing that. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. You're visualizing it, but you're also like, yeah, it is, it's, it is visualizing. It's, it's a meditation. Yeah. It's a guided meditation, but, but you kind of have to do it yourself. Like if somebody tells you to do it, it's not the same thing as really, and you have these chants, I believe it's like my legs are heavy and warm. Now, can you listen to a guided one? Cause in yoga tradition, this is called yoga, neither. And we do it, you know, almost every class I go to. And I sometimes will go to someone's Instagram and I will like download one or I will listen to one and it's really helpful. For sure. Okay. For sure. Yeah. Again, if it works for you, you can do it. You know what really puts me to sleep? Reading more than one page of a book. I cannot stay awake. So even books I love, I just have stopped trying to read at night. Someone else told me one too, where you pick a word like elephant and you visualize it in your head and then you start spelling words for every letter. So elephant, then you would say E and you would say elevator L, like lima bean. And just because you're sort of working your mind and seeing these letters and spelling things. Yeah, that that can help you drift off to sleep too. That's what that was interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Another one I really like is, you know, if there's a place that you really know very well, like your street or something like that, take yourself on a walk in your mind and like literally every brick, think of every sign, think of every car, think of every plant and you just take this very slow walk in a very known place. That's also, that's. I love that. I would, I would even love to do that in a place that, that is nostalgic maybe. Like maybe, you know, somewhere that you don't get to go anymore, maybe like your childhood home and spend a little time there before bed. Like that's beautiful. It is. Yeah. Yeah. It has a kind of a savoring vibe. Yeah. Now I think I know what you're going to say about this, but how do you feel about like nap pods and napping rooms in people's offices? I mean, it's great. If that's, I just think having napspaces. Yeah. To make it okay for people to, you know, to me, it's like if you, if you don't trust your employees to be able to, you know, self-regulate in terms of their napping, that doesn't really say a lot in terms of you as an employer. You know, like I think sleep is one of those things where you just have to, you have to trust that people aren't going to take advantage of you and that they're going to be taking care of themselves and they're going to be doing better for the company. Yeah. You know, in that same way that, you know, people are trying to incentivize exercise and incentivize good eating habits and incentivize no smoking, you know, for, for health insurance reasons. I think employers should be incentivizing sleep habits and napping and, you know, and that they should be getting the same financial benefits or, you know, shout outs to people who are taking naps regularly or sleeping really well or, you know, using their CPAP, you know, for the, for sleep apnea. Like this should really be something that is just as lauded as any other health behavior that we have. Can I just say that? So very famously we work for HuffPost and Ariana Huffington, her big thing was sleeping. She had a phrase, sleepy way to the top. She had a book about sleeping and we did have nap rooms. She wrote a, she wrote a quote from my book. See, there you go. Such an expert. But let me just tell you that people had sex in the nap rooms at HuffPost. Oh no. And no one was changing the sheets in the bed. And yeah. So, um, But you know, the thing about sex is that it's great for sleep. There you go. So maybe they were having sex and then they got their nap and then they were so productive when they came back to their dows. I think it's awesome. There should be a little space where people can go for sex free napping for sure. Yes. I strive for your lack of judgment. And then, but then you have to do your sheets when you're done, you know, you have to wander. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get the better than when you found it. Yeah. Just like the earth. Exactly. I like German toilets. They're so good about cleaning up after themselves. All right. I mean, you're right. Yeah. Change of sheets. Sarah. Have your sex together. Anything else that we didn't get to about napping that you think people should know are like the one takeaway that if someone's listening, they love napping, they hate napping. What, what would you say? Well, I think that the thing about us is that we're creatures of habit. And so if you want to, you know, have any kind of a, of a, of a system that works for you, you have to do it pretty regularly and you have to be dedicated to it and you have to sort of, you know, give it, give it time and space and, you know, and, and honor it. Right. So the way that you can create a napping kind of a regular system is that you do it at the same time, you know, of day, you do it potentially with the same accoutrements or the same, you know, maybe salsa music every single time or whatever, whatever it is, right? You need to be regular about it in the same way that you're not supposed to be eating at random times of day. You're not supposed to be exercising all the time, you know, at different times of day. You need to set your body and brain up for success. You know, in the same way that you would try to sleep at the same time of day at night. You, it's helpful to have that kind of a rhythm for napping as well. And I think that's something that, you know, over time, your body then learns like, oh, this is the time that I have lunch and this is the time that I nap and this is the time that I do exercise. And, you know, all these different pieces, your body's really listening and trying to trying its best to keep up. So I think giving it as many, you know, cues and clues for how to do that is very helpful. Maybe Sarah just going to make nappers out of us. I know I'm I'm very tempted. You're very tempted. Yeah. We'll get back to me. Let me know how it goes. We sure will. Thank you so much for being here. This was amazing. I'm a little sleepy. Yeah, it was super fun. I can't believe it. Max has asked me to move in with him. I mean, you practically live with each other already, but that's great. Did you hear that, Joe? Yes. Thanks for letting us know. I see you've updated your universal credit claim. Now you're going to be living together. If you're telling other people about a change in your circumstances, tell us too to avoid a penalty. Search. Tell DWP. How would you describe McCain vibes? I would reckon it's like a crisp and a chip. If they had a beer, would you know what I mean? I don't know. A chip and a crisp. Combination. It's got crisp ancestry, but it's a chip. Like a hot chip, crisp combo thingy. Yeah, pure poetry. That was McCain vibes. Our chip, crisp combo, hot snack thingy in a freezer aisle near you. Hello, is Giovanna Fletcher here. And my podcast, Happy Mum, Happy Baby, is currently sponsored by Cancer Research UK's Race for Life, with over 450 events happening in 150 locations across the UK this summer. You can walk it, jog it or run it, whatever feels right for you. Every step helps us beat cancer. And right now is the moment to do it. You can get 50% off your entry when you use the code spring at 26. Go all in for Cancer Research UK's Race for Life. Sign up now and save 50% off entry to your local 3K, 5K, 10K or Pretty Muddy event. Visit raceforlife.org forward slash happy mum for details. Discount ends 19th of April, 2026. T's and Z's apply. OK, it's time for Better in Five. These are the top five things that we just learned. Number one, if you're not a NAPR by nature, do not force it. Number two, 20 minute NAPS are great, but other durations can be great, too. You just don't want to wake up when you've been in that slow wave sleep cycle. I can attest. Number three, a NAP can actually restore as much as a full night of sleep. Number four, if you are torn between a NAP or a cup of coffee, choose the NAP, even five minutes can be super restoring. And number five, everyone's NAP will be different. So find what works for you. For me, it's blaring salsa music and do it. OK, so Noah, were you indeed napping wrong? Absolutely wrong. Here's the thing, though. I don't know that I'm going to nap. After all of that, I mean, Sarah blew my mind and there were so many things. I love the idea of like set an alarm, like maybe you're just bleeding into that that stage of sleep that's just you're never going to get out of cleanly. Yeah. But I don't know. It's just been so bad in the past. She gave you permission to not. She did give me permission to not. So maybe I will take that. I yeah, my association with NAPS is just like, yeah. Yeah. I'm going to have to do something, though, because Jumi doesn't seem to be moving anytime soon. So if I don't get sleep at night, I have to get it sometime. Yeah. Maybe I'll come over to your house and get in your car and sleep in the front seat like Sarah does. I have a good thing that might be the place where we need to be sleeping. Car keys and I will use your car as my nap pod. Yes. What about you? You're welcome to. I have you been doing it wrong? I have definitely been doing wrong. Same as you, like waking up in a different dimension when I try. I am fascinated with this micro nap she speaks of. Yeah. Because I love the idea of not fully going to sleep, but just having a moment of rest. And to me, it's escape. I would love that. And also the idea that maybe it's going to supercharge your creativity. Yeah, I definitely want that. Really cool. Yeah. I do think about that, like when I even when I'm going to sleep at night, like sometimes those first dreams or that in between state, really cool stuff happens there. I agree. So I would like to be there more often. So little known fact, the hypnagogic stage, I remember from psychology 101 and college. That's when most people report alien abductions. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. And they say that like they swore that an alien like came and did whatever. Right. And it's they found out they were like half awake and half asleep. Wild, right? I mean, that's when the aliens come. That's not because they're half awake. See, I did it. It's because there's nothing to do. That's when the aliens show up. Yeah. Because you're not paying attention. Perfect. I love it. Anyway, until next time, as long as there are things to get wrong, Raj and I will be right here to help you do them better. That's right. Love you guys. Am I doing it wrong is a co-production between HuffPost and ACAST. Our producers are Eve Bishop, Carmen Borca-Carrillo and Malia Agadelo. Our executive producers are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Special thanks to HuffPost's head of audience, Abby Williams, head of video, Will Took, as well as Kate Palmer, Marta Rodriguez and Terry DeAngelo. And we're your hosts, Raj Punjabi-Johnson and Noah Michelson. Hello, this is Jane and Fee from OffAir. We're currently sponsored by SpecsAvers, the seeing and hearing experts. Eyes and ears. That's right, Fee. SpecsAvers might be the nation's favourite optician, but did you know they also care a lot about your hearing? And they have done for over 20 years. Well, I'm not being funny, Jane, but maybe they should change their name. Then what about Specs and Hearing Safety? Well, I'm not being funny, Jane, but maybe they should change their name. What about Specs and Hearing Savers? Yeah. SpecsAvers? Look, I see what you're doing, but I think we'll all stick to SpecsAvers. Oh, OK. 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Well, apart from where you left your keys, which have actually been in your hand the whole time, Innocent Orange Juice is a source of vitamin C, which contributes to the normal function of the immune system, enjoys part of a healthy lifestyle and balanced diet. Hey, guys, it's Beatrice, Tammy and Sharon from our podcast, Uncut, and we're currently sponsored by the Department for Work and Pensions. Life's busy and admin gets forgotten, but if your claiming benefits, listen up. If something changes, you need to tell DWP. Otherwise, you could face a penalty. That could be a partner moving in, even if they keep their own place. Or if a car doubles up as a taxi and family car, you should only report work related costs or forgotten savings like premium bonds. To find out if you need to report a change, search, tell DWP. Hello, it's Emily Dean from Walking the Dog here, and this podcast is sponsored by The Woodland Trust. 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