A few days ago, Marina Khidekel published an article with some great tips on what to do when you didn’t sleep well.
I consider myself an expert on not sleeping well, having dealt with decades of problematic sleep since suffering a brain injury, raising three young kids, and living downtown.
This scene is a classic for me: It’s 2 pm and I’m partialy collapsed in my chair, eyes almost completely shut, pretending to read something. There’s still so much more I want to get done today… But how? Rest? Drink coffee? Neither seems to work well enough when I’m really tired.
So what’s my best go-to trick?
How I reinvented the wheel of the improved catnap
To my excitement and disappointment, I stumbled upon an awesome trick and then found out that it’s actually a thing. (What? How?)
But first, some confessions:
- Like I said, I have sleep issues that I’m working on resolving. The bottom line is that my ratios of light / REM / deep sleep are off.
- I’m a coffee drinker, but I don’t love coffee. I drink it like medicine, to wake up.
- I’m actually sensitive to caffeine. If I don’t maintain a regular daily dose of caffeine, I get terrible withdrawal headaches. In my 20s, I was only drinking coffee at work. I used to get crazy headaches on weekends, and it took me months to realize I had to make myself drink coffee daily.
Despite my morning coffee, I have severe energy lows in the early afternoon. (If you suffer from burnout or deal with chronic stress, you, too, may experience severe energy lows.) Powering through them tends to be futile.
Usually, I try to get up from my desk and do something physical to raise my energy levels. Yet, if I’m really tired, shortly after I sit back down, I fall asleep again. Literally falling asleep at my desk. This also happened when I worked in an office! You can imagine the jokes…
Working from home, when I have this slump I either take a quick nap or drink another cup of coffee. But like I said, that doesn’t always solve the problem.
I know some people don’t like napping, they get up all groggy. Some people avoid napping because they feel that napping is a sign of laziness. I’m an avid napper. And when I found out that Winston Churchill napped his way through WWII, I became a proud one.
Naps work well for me, but they do take time. So often, I prefer the quick-fix of a cup of coffee.
Yet, there were times when I drank the coffee and still couldn’t keep my eyes open. In despair, I decided to nap, or rather, collapsed.
The effects were dramatic! I woke up feeling way more refreshed than after either coffee or napping.
Why coffee naps work
Because I like science, I went online to see what I could find out about my brilliant trick. (Another confession: I’m a nerd.) Shockingly, I found out that “Coffee Naps” were all the rage in 2015 and nobody told me!
In short – both caffeine and napping reduce adenosine, a molecule in our bodies that makes us sleepy. It takes caffeine about 15-20 minutes to metabolize. So if you drink coffee right before taking a 15-30 minute nap, you’ll get a double effect of the rest + caffeine, feeling much more refreshed.
So on the one hand, I’m disappointed that the cool kids didn’t share this trick, and I had to find out on my own. On the other hand, they already put together all the fancy research for me! If you also self-identify as a nerd, this is for you. If not, skip these bullet points:
- 3-minute SciShow video – sciency!
- 2.5-minute Vox video – even more science! But with super cool vintage photography
- Vox article – same science, for those who prefer to read (=skim, admit it!)
- An actual personal story from the Washington Post – for the cooler kids
- Health.com article – short and to the point
The rules of the coffee nap
- Coffee naps work
- Drink your coffee fairly quickly (a few minutes)
- Sleep or just rest for 15-30 minutes – I often just lie down and read
- If you don’t wake up naturally, set an alarm
- Don’t drink coffee less than 6 hours before your bedtime
- Consider skipping your morning coffee if you’re used to only one cup a day
- If you have reflux or irritable bowel syndrome, try green tea instead
Not a coffee drinker?
You can still take advantage of the coffee nap.
If you drink black or green tea, this should work equally well with a strong cup of tea. Make sure not to drink it over a long period of time, as the caffeine needs to be consumed quickly to be effective.
Not taking cafferine at all? First, I envy you. I’m not happy with my caffeine dependency. But more importantly, is there a coffee nap equivalent for you?
Apprently there is! Recently, I’ve been trying to limit my caffeine intake to the morning only, and was wondering if there were other compounds that could reduce adenosine. Online wisdom suggested zinc supplements, so I went ahead and tested them. I took a 22mg zinc pill, napped, and what do you know? It worked! I woke up refreshed and happy, without the jitteriness I get from caffeine. I love it!
Please note that 22mg is more than the recommended daily dosage for both men and women. You can read more about zinc here. Clearly, I’m no doctor nor do I play one on the internet, so if you have any concerns about supplements, please consult a professional.
I’m still hoping that one day my nighttime sleep will be so effective that it keep me energetic all day long. 🙂
Meanwhile, this is my favorite trick.
Bed photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels
Desk photo by Marcus Aurelius from Pexels