Wednesday, October 31, 2007


i should have looked for this years ago

How to Take a Power Nap

Scientists say that a successful midday nap depends on two things: timing and (no kidding) caffeine consumption. Experiments performed at Loughborough University in the UK showed that the sleep-deprived need only a cup of coffee and 15 minutes of shut-eye to feel amazingly refreshed.

Steps

  1. Right before you crash, down a cup of java. The caffeine has to travel through your gastro-intestinal tract, giving you time to nap before it kicks in.
  2. Close your eyes and relax. Even if you only doze, you'll get what's known as effective microsleep, or momentary lapses of wakefulness.
  3. Limit your nap to 15 minutes. This should be easy, as the caffeine will wake you up since it blocks adenosine, the neurotransmitter that promotes fatigue. A half hour can lead to sleep inertia, or the spinning down of the brain's prefrontal cortex, which handles functions like judgment. This gray matter can take 30 minutes to reboot.


0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home