Rest, it’s all part of ANY plan.

Sleep plays a vital role in your health and well-being. Getting enough quality sleep at the right times can help protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life, and safety. Many of us find it hard to get enough hours of sleep during the night, which can eventually harm you over time, and raise your risk for some chronic health problems.

Naps can be one of the most powerful tools for self-improvement. They can help increase your alertness, improve your learning and memory, prevents burnout, heightens your creativity, improves health, mood, and productivity.

Now that you know how naps can benefit you, how long should they be? You can actually tailor your nap to your specific needs.

10 – 20 minutes

The power nap. This nap length is ideal for a boost in alertness, stamina, and motor learning skills. This length usually limits you to lighter stages on non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, making it easier to hit the ground running after napping.

30 minutes

Great for decision-making skills. Sleeping this long may cause sleep inertia, a groggy like feeling that lasts for a little while after you wake up, before the nap’s restorative benefits become apparent.

60 minutes

Best for improvement in remembering facts, faces, and names. It includes slow-wave sleep, the deepest type. The downside is the grogginess upon waking up.

90 minutes

Great for those who need a boost in creativity. This would be considered a full cycle sleep. It would include the light and deeper stages of sleep including REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Leads to improved emotional and procedural memory, and creativity. It is usually easier to wake up after a nap this long.

Here are some tips for some quality evening sleep

It is not a luxury, it is essential

Proper sleep is as crucial to your well-being as proper diet and exercise.

Increase your sleep

Go to bed 15 minutes earlier every night for an extended period of time (1 week). Add 15 minutes the week after and so on. After a month, you will be sleeping an hour more a night and will dramatically increase the way you feel.

Bedroom Rules

Set your thermometer a couple of degrees below your normal daytime temperature. Dim your lights. Light makes your pineal gland inhibit melatonin, which is a hormone that regulates your sleep cycle.

Eliminate Electronics

Shut down your electronics! Artificial light fools your brain into thinking it’s daytime.

Don’t drink and sleep

Try to drink a lot before bedtime to avoid middle of the night washroom runs. Especially avoid alcohol before bed because falling blood alcohol levels disrupt your deep sleep.

Noise Helps

Common sleep problems such as insomnia can actually be helped with noise. When a noise wakes you up at night, it’s not the noise itself that wakes you up but rather the sudden change in noise that wakes you. By sleeping with a noise maker, or any other white noise such as a fan, it creates a masking effect, which will block out all the sudden changes of noise that can be experienced during the night.