By Radhika Kattula
For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with naps. I love to sleep, but why would I bother sleeping when I could be doing something great with my life like binge-watching movies on Netflix? Yet, every once in a while, despite my best intentions, I can slowly feel myself nodding off. And as it turns out, a bit of research told me that it’s actually a good thing to take the occasional nap, but it’s better with coffee.
Now before you dismiss this idea as crazy, just think about it. Coffee naps can’t be that bad, can they? They involve most people’s two favorite things: coffee and sleeping (complete opposites now that I think of it). So what really is a coffee nap? In a brief synopsis, it’s where you chug down a cup of coffee (no decaf!) and take a 15-20 minute nap right afterwards. Coffee naps have been proven more effective than just taking a nap or just drinking a cup of coffee.
Don’t just take my word for it. Science actually proves that coffee naps are the best option. You see, when you actually use your brain your body produces a chemical called adenosine, which in high amounts makes you feel tired. Coffee works because the caffeine goes into the brain and blocks the adenosine so it can’t make you tired. Here’s the kicker though: caffeine takes about 20 minutes to work its way up to your brain. That happens to be the amount of time it takes for excess adenosine to dissipate. A coffee nap combines the two so that you get the rest from the power nap and the full effects of your coffee when you wake up.
If you’re anything like me, half of those 20 minutes are probably going to be spent stressing out about everything you have to do, while the other half is you mentally telling yourself to shut up. The great thing about coffee naps, though, is that they still work even if you’re not completely asleep for those 20 minutes. In fact, it’s good not to be in deep sleep, because the trick to a coffee nap is sticking to the 20 minute limit. Any more and you’ll wake up really groggy, or worse, you’ll wake up in a couple of hours.
So the moral of the story is that if you’re super sleepy, short on time, and have some coffee on hand, a coffee nap might just do the trick. The best part? With coffee naps, sleep no longer has to be your hardest hello and your hardest goodbye.
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