Coffee and naps: a couple of the most glorious things on Earth for many people. You don’t really associate the 2, but they both share 1 thing in common – each can give you an energy boost. Combine them and you might just have the most amazing snooze of your life. Coffee nap here we come.
A coffee nap is when you drink a cup of coffee, then immediately take a nap. It sounds crazy, but it takes about 30 minutes for caffeine to hit your system. That means you could take a power nap and wake up with double the energy! Ideally, you’d sleep for 30 minutes and emerge from your slumber just as the caffeine is kicking in. [1]
Dr. David Dinges, Ph.D., Professor and Chief, Division of Sleep and Chronobiology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, told The Huffington Post in 2014:
“If you can fall asleep in your nap before caffeine does that, when it’s time to wake up, you’re getting the benefits of the caffeine perfectly timed with the nap sleep benefit.”
Read: Napping Could Improve Your Memory Fivefold
Man, if only you could do this at the office. You’d probably wind up being so much more productive.
Coffee Naps!
There has been a little bit of research into coffee naps. One study published in 1997 in the journal Psychophysiology found that sleepy adults who combined 200 mg of coffee (twice the amount you’d find in a 9 oz cup of joe) then napped did better on a simulated driving test compared to those who only got the caffeine or a placebo. [1]
The people in the napping group were less likely to display dangerous behavior on the road, such as drifting in and out of their lanes, compared to participants who just drank coffee or drank decaffeinated coffee. [2]
In another study, published in 2003 in Clinical Neurophysiology, 10 young adults were divided into 5 groups, and each group attempted 1 of 5 interventions in the middle of completing computer tasks:
- A 20-minute nap
- 200 mg of caffeine, plus a nap
- A nap, followed by the participants washing their faces
- Exposure to bright light immediately after waking
- Resting
Read: Brain Foods: 5 Natural Cognition And Brain Boosters
Like the first study, caffeine plus a nap was the most effective performance-booster.
This isn’t something you want to try too late in the day, mind you. Most experts recommend cutting off caffeine 6 hours before bedtime. Drinking a cup of coffee at 8 p.m. could keep you up till early the next morning and keep you from getting a good night’s sleep. [3]
Some experts say you should quit caffeine even earlier than that.
Sources:
[1] Health
[2] Australian Broadcasting Corporation
[3] Metro