A COFFEE BREAK
Drinking coffee (or any form of caffeine) and then taking a nap — immediately.
It sounds like a paradoxical bit of advice, right? However, it’s proven by scientific studies, and it’s more effective than just drinking coffee or taking a nap to recharge your energy levels.
The Coffee Nap idea sounds counterintuitive, but caffeine actually takes a little while before it starts affecting you.
Caffeine has to go past your stomach and into your small intestine, passing through your bloodstream, and entering your brain before it takes its effects. This whole process takes about 20 minutes.
If you spend those 20 minutes unconscious, you’re going to wake up feeling pretty GREAT!
To further understand the coffee nap, you have to understand how caffeine actually affects you, and why you feel groggy and sleepy in the first place. Here’s the science behind the idea:
‘There is a molecule inside your brain called adenosine that plugs into receptors inside your brain cells and makes you feel tired. Adenosine is a by-product of brain activity. It builds up while you’re awake throughout the day and starts to slow down your neurons.
Caffeine chemically looks a lot like adenosine, and can plug into those same receptors adenosine fits into. Since adenosine is what causes you to feel tired, the caffeine blocking it out is what keeps your brain from slowing itself down.’
Sleep naturally clears out adenosine from the brain.
When you take a coffee nap, the caffeine doesn’t even need to compete with adenosine to fit into those receptors. So the benefits are increased, as opposed to just isolating either a nap or caffeine alone.
The ideal sleep duration after consuming the caffeine is 15 to 20 minutes but not longer. Any longer than 20 minutes might cause your brain to enter the deeper stages of sleep, that take some time to recover from — so you won’t feel that surge of energy, right away, when you awaken. Short 20 minute naps will be just enough time for the caffeine to enter the brain, and just enough time for some adenosine to naturally clear out. So when you wake up, you will have maximum alertness.
Proven scientific studies back these claims:
‘Researchers at Loughborough University in the UK found that when tired participants took a 15-minute coffee nap, they went on to commit fewer errors in a driving simulator than when they were given only coffee, or only took a nap (or were given a decaf placebo). This was true even if they had trouble falling asleep, and just laid in bed half-asleep during the 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, a Japanese study found that people who took a caffeine nap before taking a series of memory tests performed significantly better on them compared with people who solely took a nap, or took a nap and then washed their faces or had a bright light shone in their eyes. They also subjectively rated themselves as less tired.
Interestingly, there’s even some evidence that caffeine naps can help people go for relatively long periods without proper sleep. As part of one study, 24 young men went without proper sleep for a 24-hour period, taking only short naps. Twelve of them, who were given just a placebo, performed markedly worse on a series of cognition tests, compared with their baseline scores. Twelve others, who had caffeine before their naps, managed scores roughly the same as their baselines for the entire day (Stromberg, 2015).’
How to Take a Coffee/Caffeine Nap:
First consume a caffeinated ingestible or drink a caffeinated beverage — our ONLY1MIND supplement is perfect because it’s quick and easy to swallow and nap without delay.
If you’re drinking coffee, you NEED to drink it quickly, to give yourself a long enough time to sleep, as it’s going through your gastrointestinal tract and into your bloodstream, while you are sipping. If it’s tough for you to down hot coffee (likely), have an espresso shot, ice-coffee, or just pop a ONLY1MIND nootropic supplement with some water (most convenient).
Set an alarm or timer for 20 minutes and go straight to sleep. Don’t worry if sleep doesn’t come easily — just reaching a tranquil half-asleep stage can be helpful.
Be sure to set the alarm and wake-up within 20 minutes, so you don’t enter the deeper stages of sleep and you’re awake when the caffeine is just starting to hit your brain.
When you wake up, you will feel refreshed and energized — the perfect power nap!
REFERENCES
Streit, L., 2018. Coffee Nap: Can Caffeine Before A Nap Boost Energy Levels?. [online] Healthline. Available at: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/coffee-nap [Accessed 18 August 2020].
Stromberg, J., 2015. Scientists Agree: Coffee Naps Are Better Than Coffee Or Naps Alone. [online] Vox. Available at: https://www.vox.com/2014/8/28/6074177/coffee-naps-caffeine-science [Accessed 18 August 2020].
WRITTER BY TUSHAR GULSHAN