Taking naps to improve studying efficiency

[Cavesa]

Dear friends,

I hope you won't find this too appropriate, but I am convinced this is a good place to ask, thanks to the wide spectrum of experience you possess. And this is directly connected to language learning. I'd like to thank in advance to anyone sharing their experience.

My main learning weakness (as I've realised thanks to another recent thread) is the constant fatigue. I've been like this for ages, I have always had broken sleep (and no amount of unwanted well meant parenting advice by everyone around helped my parents fix their baby. It was not a matter of raising a child wrong and not trying enough to force it to sleep.) and my health (I have had an acquired condition directly affecting my sleep quality for approximately twenty years. It has improved a lot already but it is still here and now I am having a harder time again), and also my study habits (I need to push myself in the night as everything disturbs me during the day. I really struggle to focus. A healthy life and medicine studies do not go well together.

The problem is not the "quality of sleep". I don't wake up even in noise. A milder earthquake didn't wake me up on a holiday in Japan. I sometimes wander where the limit is. Perhaps the Richter scale could be a new alternative to the Glasgow coma scale

It is not just the rhytm (I feel surprisingly well even after a sleepless night, I am doing marvellously, pass exams the easiest with this as I don't have too much capacity for some kinds of emotion, I usually feel good, I have a worse sense of humour though, and I cannot oversleep which is great. But it is horrible in the long run and incompatible with the world around me). The worse part is the content. I have fewer nightmares than I used to but I simply have very vivid and tiring dreams. It's like having to suffer a second day right after the first one. That is a bigger problem than the rhytm. I get enough sleep now, I can even afford my own regularity. But I am hypertired as I am active the whole night and have a hard time waking up.

I've tried all the usual advice. I've even experimented with giving up a coffee for almost two weeks with no improvements (the only results: I was feeling much worse during the day, bradycardia, I was tired, and more likely to have headaches), with trying to go to sleep at the same time every day (useless. the earlier I go to sleep, the longer I look into the ceiling and doing it several nights in a row is just annoying, not improving.). My boyfriend helps a lot, I sleep much more calmly with him.

The usual advice also suggests not doing anything before sleep. No tv (I have cut down the screens but it is difficult) but also no books, nothing too intellectually demanding (studying?) nothing to emotional (studying?), no food, and so on. So I am supposed to watch the ceiling for several hours? And where do I put enough hours of studying and a bit of living, if I can't do anything several hours before sleep? I have no clue.

The problem of vast majority of advice, meds (I have the least dream inducing ones and they help me fall asleep much faster, but it is not a long term solution despite the fact I never abuse them), lifestyle changes, herbal teas, and so on is still the same: it brings more REM sleep. They "improve" sleep by making it deeper, more REM, longer. I hate REM sleep, that's where the problem is, I sleep too deeply. I am going to the gym again but I simply don't believe increased physical activity could help, I've tried already. A few months of nearly everyday gym brought no good results to my sleep back then. Both the amateur and doctor advice are the same, they think good sleep=deep sleep. Nope. I can have only one active life. Awake or asleep. Don't force me to live them both.

So, I've thought of trying a different approach, where the night sleep might change secondarily or not at all, but I would still get much more from my days in the end, if it works:

I have read a lot about the wonderful habit of siesta and its variation. One thing really caught my attention: 20 minute long naps. And the best: caffeine naps: you drink a coffee and go to sleep (the problem:how to fall asleep asap), wake up after 20 minutes (how to hear the alarmclock?), and the caffeine should be kicking in by then. The short nap should be safe from REM and dreams (or I have learnt my neurology really badly )I have found not only popular psychology websites (some of which seem to be surprisingly good, most are crap of course) but also studies like this one, with only the abstract available for free: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8936399

Sleepy drivers should "take a break," but the efficacy of feasible additional countermeasures that can be used during the break is unknown. We examined a shorter than 15 min nap, 150 mg of caffeine in coffee, and a coffee placebo, each given randomly across test sessions to 10 sleepy subjects during a 30-min rest period between two 1-hr monotonous early afternoon drives in a car simulator. Caffeine and nap significantly reduced driving impairments, subjective sleepiness, and electroencephalographic (EEG) activity indicating drowsiness. Blink rate was unaffected. Sleep during naps varied, whereas caffeine produced more consistent effects. Subjects acknowledged sleepiness when the EEG indicated drowsiness, and driving impairments were preceded by self-knowledge of sleepiness. Taking just a break proved ineffective.

Here is a quote of a language related not too scientific website talking about a geriatric research https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/h ... 87583.html:

Nearly 60 percent of those 3,000 people said they did take a nap after lunch and that their naps lasted anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes. Most of the subjects who said they napped said they napped for about an hour.

The study found that people who took an hour-long nap did much better on mental tests than those who did not nap. The hour-long nappers also did better on the tests than those who napped for shorter and longer periods. In this study, it seems that the most effective nap lasted for about an hour, but not much longer.

These researchers reported their findings in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Keep in mind, however, that these are the findings for those over the age of 65.

Yet Doctor Michael Twery notes that an hour long nap may be too long for young, healthy adults.

“Currently, we’re recommending that we try to sleep for about 30 minutes or less. And 30 minutes is enough to remove the pressure to sleep and will help us feel more awake. If we nap longer, we will get trapped into those deeper layers of sleep, which can be hard to get out of.”

The feeling Twery described is called sleep inertia -- the period when you awake from a very deep sleep. For a time, you are unable to think clearly.

“So sleep inertia is when someone is being awakened from deep sleep. Some individuals may find it hard to change instantly from that deep sleep – where everything is a bit foggy and confused – to the fully awake state. We may be a little bit clumsy. We may not have all our thoughts in order when we wake from deep sleep."

Yes, sleep inertia describes 99% of my mornings perfectly (I didn't know the term before reading this) and it doesn't matter at all what time it is. I am confused, unsure whether it is still that dream, I think slowly, it takes time to orient myself again. The research was about older people but it talks about shorter naps for the younger ones. And I am also a bit like a much older person now, due to being continuously exhausted (I was promised it would get better again, when I finally get rid of some of my huge stressors )

And I am sure I read about a successful polyglot with a siesta habit a few years ago, but I cannot found the article now.

So, what is your experience with taking naps?
Do you take them? How long? At what time?
Have you tried the caffeine naps?
How do you manage to fall asleep and to wake up?
Any problem with waking up to a fully alert state?
Have you failed such an experiment before or simply didn't like it? Why?
Have the naps improved your mental abilities? Do you feel better?
Do you think naps could help me achieve more efficient and perhaps even longer studying sessions? Have you tried?
Have such naps during the day helped you improve memory or at least "just" your well being?

[rdearman]

As far as going to sleep you might want to try the 4-7-8 method to help you fall asleep. Personally I avoid napping because it gives me a headache afterwards. One thing which interested me was Polyphasic Sleep.

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/ ... sic-sleep/
https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/ ... ear-later/

[kulaputra]

Have you considered seeing a doctor about this? A sleep specialist not just your GP. Subjective experiences of sleep are often wildly out of touch with what is actually happening in the case of people with certain sleep disorders (e.g. patients with sleep apnea not realizing they wake up every 90 seconds all night long on some nights), so objective evaluation might be useful. You should ask for a sleep study to be done, they'll put you in a lab overnight to observe you.

[AndyMeg]

I've been interested in this topic for quite some time, so I've done some experiments and read some books and many articles. Here is a summary of the main points I can think of right now:

Not all people need the same amount of sleep. So one thing that is recommended is to go to sleep when you feel like it and to wake up without an alarm clock. Of course, to do this is not easy in a tight daily schedule, but maybe you may try it when you are on holiday. (this could give you a good idea of how many hours a day you need to sleep)

From my personal experience, a good nap can boost my energy levels by quite a lot (I even kept track of my energy levels during each day for many weeks and noticed that after a nap my energy went up by at least a level or two). The record was what convinced me that I was not losing time by taking a nap, and I started to see it as a wise investment in my energy levels and my hability to focus. If you want to try something similar you can use a heatmap to keep track. Here is an example of one: How Heat Mapping Your Productivity Can Make You More Productive. Ideally, short naps shouldn't be longer than 30 minutes because you could wake up in the middle of a sleeping stage that makes you feel drowsy for quite some time after wake up. The best length for a power nap seems to be between 10 and 20 minutes long. But there are also longer naps. In case you want to take a long nap, they should be around 100 minutes long (give or take 10 minutes) because that is the approximate lenght of a sleep cycle and it will allow you to wake up with reasonable alertness while also getting the benefits from the rest.

Environmental conditions are also important for a good sleep. Your sleeping space should be as dark as possible (and if that's not the case, a good eye mask may be of help) and have the right temperature (not too cold, not too hot). Investing in a good mattress and some good pillows can help a lot too. Also, it is important to separate the sleeping space from your working space. Both spaces should have a different feeling to it. Also, warm lights are best to create a good "sleeping ambience" (for example: warm lighted room)

Eating early is a good idea (go to sleep two or more hours after your last meal for the day). Also, the type of food you eat for dinner may affect your sleep. For example, eating meat or fatty foods is not recommended at night.

I countinue to use my PC and my tablet before sleep but I do the following:
- use blue light filters or similar apps after sunset (like, f.lux, for example)
- One hour before I "go to bed" I try to do actitivites that distract me but that do not take much energy or that won't increase my state of alertness as time goes by (this is why reading a page turner or playing a highly competitive game/videogame may not be the best idea at that time of the day). Also, exercise is good to improve your sleep but it should be distributed throughout the day. You should not make any strong physical activity around five hours prior to bedtime. Instead you can make some light exercise like stretching, some yoga, or take a slow walk.

You don't have to do everything at night. If you wake up early after a good night's sleep you can have quite a lot of time to do the things that you want to do (like reading a page turner).

[Cavesa]

As far as going to sleep you might want to try the 4-7-8 method to help you fall asleep. Personally I avoid napping because it gives me a headache afterwards. One thing which interested me was Polyphasic Sleep.

https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/ ... sic-sleep/
https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2007/ ... ear-later/

Thanks, I will definitely try that and look more into the polyphases. Falling asleep faster is a good thing. But it unfortunately doesn't remove the dreams. Which are just as real as the real world and just as demanding and tiring. Perhaps the polyphasic sleep could help.

Have you considered seeing a doctor about this? A sleep specialist not just your GP. Subjective experiences of sleep are often wildly out of touch with what is actually happening in the case of people with certain sleep disorders (e.g. patients with sleep apnea not realizing they wake up every 90 seconds all night long on some nights), so objective evaluation might be useful. You should ask for a sleep study to be done, they'll put you in a lab overnight to observe you.

I have consulted my doctors and adding a sleep specialist would not be a good choice. I have a different diagnose and the sleep problems are just one of the symptoms and not the main one. I am actually improving but I simply cannot expect full recovery. Not in a few years for sure and possibly not ever. I just need to learn how to go around this, that's why I am asking about a new element: naps during the day. Also, vast majority of the well meant advice from doctors goes directly against finishing my MD (and getting my dream job abroad) that I have suffered for immensely, and being worthless for the rest of my life as a result of this. I need to survive this hell and improve my studying results enough to win over tons of awesome students and to learn two more languages to a higher level as a plan B. That is much more important than general health or being happy or perhaps even my survival. That is so attractive about the naps theory: they could improve my productivity and congnitive abilities, if this whole thing works. That's why I am asking about everyone's experience. A sleep study is going to find nothing impactful, I could tell you right now what would the result be, I could even prewrite the report. I've been told what I sleep like, I know what I experience, and I have some knowledge of what do the measuring mashines work like. I could list you all the usual sleep disorder diagnoses with the reasons why I most probably don't have them.

I've been interested in this topic for quite some time, so I've done some experiments and read some books and many articles. Here is a summary of the main points I can think of right now:

Not all people need the same amount of sleep. So one thing that is recommended is to go to sleep when you feel like it and to wake up without an alarm clock. Of course, to do this is not easy in a tight daily schedule, but maybe you may try it when you are on holiday. (this could give you a good idea of how many hours a day you need to sleep)

Thank you! You are an amazing resource!

I've tried and I am able to repeatedly sleep for over 12 hours a day (normally. When I was immunologically ill for a year, it was often 14 or even 18 hours a day. Now it's just between 10 and 13). I cannot follow that. Especially as that would mean more dreams and therefore being less rested.

From my personal experience, a good nap can boost my energy levels by quite a lot (I even kept track of my energy levels during each day for many weeks and noticed that after a nap my energy went up by at least a level or two). The record was what convinced me that I was not losing time by taking a nap, and I started to see it as a wise investment in my energy levels and my hability to focus. If you want to try something similar you can use a heatmap to keep track. Here is an example of one: How Heat Mapping Your Productivity Can Make You More Productive. Ideally, short naps shouldn't be longer than 30 minutes because you could wake up in the middle of a sleeping stage that makes you feel drowsy for quite some time after wake up. The best length for a power nap seems to be between 10 and 20 minutes long. But there are also longer naps. In case you want to take a long nap, they should be around 100 minutes long (give or take 10 minutes) because that is the approximate lenght of a sleep cycle and it will allow you to wake up with reasonable alertness while also getting the benefits from the rest.

Thank you, this is exactly the kind of experience I was hoping to find. I'll try the short naps, I don't want to get to the full cycle. The naps could be a good investment, you are right. I am really unproductive due to being simply exhausted most of the time. Sleeping a bit instead of spending several times more on procrastination and trying to focus could be a good choice.

Environmental conditions are also important for a good sleep. Your sleeping space should be as dark as possible (and if that's not the case, a good eye mask may be of help) and have the right temperature (not too cold, not too hot). Investing in a good mattress and some good pillows can help a lot too. Also, it is important to separate the sleeping space from your working space. Both spaces should have a different feeling to it. Also, warm lights are best to create a good "sleeping ambience" (for example: warm lighted room)

Eating early is a good idea (go to sleep two or more hours after your last meal for the day). Also, the type of food you eat for dinner may affect your sleep. For example, eating meat or fatty foods is not recommended at night.

I'll try getting that mask, despite my fear of darkness. I have a good mattress and pillow. I don't get enough darkness usually but even when I do, it makes no difference. The longer periods of time with sleeping in the ideal dark and temperature conditions still didn't remove the main problem:too active sleeping.

But the mask should help falling asleep for a shorter nap during the day.

How do people with small appartments do it, tearing apart the working and sleeping space?

I countinue to use my PC and my tablet before sleep but I do the following:
- use blue light filters or similar apps after sunset (like, f.lux, for example)
- One hour before I "go to bed" I try to do actitivites that distract me but that do not take much energy or that won't increase my state of alertness as time goes by (this is why reading a page turner or playing a highly competitive game/videogame may not be the best idea at that time of the day). Also, exercise is good to improve your sleep but it should be distributed throughout the day. You should not make any strong physical activity around five hours prior to bedtime. Instead you can make some light exercise like stretching, some yoga, or take a slow walk.

You don't have to do everything at night. If you wake up early after a good night's sleep you can have quite a lot of time to do the things that you want to do (like reading a page turner).

I have a blue light filter in my glasses. It has been one of my best glasses investments so far, but I'll try the apps and similar stuff anyways. I've noticed already that my eyes get much less tired thanks to this. But it is hard to tell what a difference will an app make.

There is the problem. I cannot just not do some stuff several hours before going to sleep, because there are simply not enough hours in the day. If I was studying a funny "university" with no work required (there are many), I could easily do this. But I need to get a good score in a competition against 9000 people in a year from now. Also, when else should I read a page turner? I am asking because I honestly don't know. And what am I supposed to do in that hour? Looking at the whole list of things I cannot do (the internet including serious websites lists tons of things), the only thing left is staring into the ceiling, which is the best way to induce an anxiety attack. What do you do before sleep?

I am doing everything at night because I fail to do it in the day. It really feels as if I have at least 30 IQ points less in the morning than in the night. Despite all my attempts of the last quarter of century (it began when I was a small child and all the great animated series for kids were on in the weekend mornings and I was never able to wake up). I simply don't know how to do it. During the mornings, I have a real problem remembering even where and when I am and it doesn't matter whether I have slept for 6 hours or 12.

And even if I "don't have to do everything at night", I need to do a part of the work. If I want to get a real chance of getting the compensation for my horrible studies that I want, I need to study for 10 hours a day minimum, preferably 14, like the best students in medschool. How am I supposed to do that. If I don't, all my sacrifice and suffering and all the missed better opportunities have been for nothing.

How have you applied these things to the naps during the day? Do you not do stuff one hour before the nap? Or have you found some easier way to simply fall asleep? Or is the whole timing different, thanks to the nap being so much shorter?

Thanks a lot for replying, you've given me a lot of food for thought and tips to try out! Thank you!

[白田龍]

Constant sleepyness and fatigue may be hormonal, so check your hormone levels if you haven't.

[garyb]

I've had insomnia and tiredness for years so I've read a lot of books and online articles. For me it's a psychological thing above all: when I'm on holiday and relaxed, I can break all the rules - coffee after a late dinner, using my phone before going to bed, going to sleep and waking up at different times each day - and still get a decent sleep even in a noisy and well-lit hostel dorm. Then I come back home and get back into the routine and struggle despite following the guidelines as much as I can (things like separating sleep space from living space and having a completely dark room can indeed be difficult when living in a small rented flat). My sleep has improved recently along with my general mental health but it's still not great.

I do often hear that the fact of thinking too much about sleep and sticking too rigidly to all the advice can become part of the problem in itself: you place so much importance on sleep and make so many sacrifices (evening productivity, social life, etc.) that you become anxious about it, and as soon as you're in bed and struggling to sleep you just feel more frustrated and it keeps the vicious circle going. Also remember that plenty people do sleep well in less-than-ideal conditions. So it's best to take them as guidelines rather than rigid rules.

My main issue with short naps is that it often takes me an hour or more to fall asleep, so in 20 minutes I'm not getting any real rest. That said, I don't think the point of a short nap is necessarily to have "proper" sleep; just taking a break is beneficial in itself, and a few minutes in the hypnagogic state (the "half-asleep" phase) can give a definite boost. I also recently found out about Yoga Nidra (the "full night's sleep" title is an exaggeration; that site has good content but does go for clickbaity headlines), a kind of lying-down guided meditation that typically lasts around 20 minutes and is supposed to induce this state. One of these often helps me more than just lying in silence for the same amount of time, although I feel quite drowsy immediately afterwards.

I often enjoy a longer afternoon siesta of a couple of hours at the weekend, but it takes some time to wake up again afterwards and definitely make it harder to fall asleep at night so I try to avoid it unless I'm planning to go out late.

[jeff_lindqvist]

How do people with small appartments do it, tearing apart the working and sleeping space?

I'm never closer to falling asleep than when:

1. reading in bed in the afternoon
2. watching something on TV (late afternoon)
3. listening to an audiobook (any time of the day) without doing something else at the same time
4. doing some monotonous language work at the computer (say, repeating AwesomeTTS audio in Anki aloud, or doing Glossika reps)

1, 2 and 3 can be solved by taking a nap - and that's a short one. I set the alarm to ~10 minutes later, not more! I wake up and everything is OK. Why I become tired is likely related to the level of comfortablility (bed or armchair).

4 is the most difficult one, even if it's after midnight (and more or less time to go to bed). I can almost doze off completely in front of the computer (and if it was physically possible, to fall into deep sleep...). Even if I'm in bed less than five minutes later,I won't fall asleep. To me, that's strange.

[kanewai]

The twenty-minute caffeine-nap is amazing. I wish I could convince my union to make this part of our work contract. I find that I can nap up to forty minutes and still wake up feeling good. If I nap any longer than I'm actually more groggy and out of it than before.

[Xenops]

I might check what you eat: I know for certain that if I drink chai tea after noontime, I will have nightmares. Guaranteed. Further investigation has lead me to believe that it's cinnamon in particular that's the culprit. This is a problem, as I like spicy tea.

When I take a nap it's usually 90-100 minutes, and I do have sleep inertia afterwards. But I'm good to go for the rest of the day/night. I've tried shorter naps, and they are not as refreshing, I think because I don't enter REM sleep. But shorter naps are better than no naps.

Back on the food thing, I was gluten-free for three years, because wheat products made me tired--gave me "brain fog". I could eat something as carb dense minus the gluten and I would feel fine. A year ago I suddenly loss the symptoms, and now I can eat wheat again.

Another option would be trying the ketogenic diet: I found that I had the most energy when I dropped carbs for fats. It was easier to do in Idaho, because there's no good ethnic restaurants. I've considered doing it again actually, but it's harder to do so in Boston: there's always carb temptations.

Normally I have a form of insomnia where I wake up after four hours, and I'm wide awake for the next several hours until I crash. I don't take an official sleeping medication, but it works to where I will sleep eight hours on point. You can PM me for specifics.

Edit: I always read in bed, but if I'm reading true crime or Tokyo Ghoul, so much for turning in early. Reading ordinary non-fiction is a good option: especially theoretical stuff like theology or philosophy. Or I recently read a book on Japanese culture. Essentially, something that isn't a page-turner.

I also use f.lux for my computer, which tones down the screen light as the evening passes.