Contrary to popular belief, nap time isn’t just for children and the elderly anymore. Many productivity studies have been done showing that a mid-afternoon nap actually increases productivity, even though you theoretically have less time to get things done.
Why is this? Well, I’m sure the easiest way to back this up is through a little quiz. How many of you, at least on occasion, find your eyes getting heavy and you mind starting to drift between 1:30 and 3:00 in the afternoon? If you were one of those who answered yes, or one of those who wanted to but didn’t ’cause they didn’t want the boss to know, answer this next question. During this time, how easy is it to do consistently high-quality work with a minimum of errors? That’s what I thought, not so easy.

So, throw a little nap in there. Heck, NASA recommends it. Famous people did it. There’s tonnes of info available on the benefits of it (Just type nap and benefits into Google and start perusing the 1,850,000 results).

Okay, so you’re on board with the idea, that’s good. So, now, how do we sleep in the middle of the day? Well, there’s a few things available. One program, which thus far I’ve only used their trial, but plan on buying soon, is Pzizz. Once I actually get into using it a little more regularly, I’ll post a review, but based on my experience with the demo, this program definitely shows some promise.

So what are some other tips and techniques? Here’s a few:

The basics that seem to be common across most of these suggestions are trying to keep the nap between 10 and 25 minutes (too long and you hit deep sleep, makes things tough to wake up), and try to find somewhere quiet where you won’t be interrupted. Darkness can be a benefit as well, though you can always get one of those eye masks if that’s not doable.

Do you have any other tips for grabbing that midday nap? Any stories? Post them below!

Cheers, and happy napping!