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Sleep doctor says drink coffee before a nap in trick she calls ‘nappuccino’
We usually have caffeinated beverages to stay awake, but one sleep doctor has shared some contradicting advice.
She says you should drink a coffee before you want to have a nap in a trick that she calls the “nappuccino”.
Sleep doctor says drink coffee before a nap
Speaking on Steven Bartlett’s Diary Of A CEO podcast, Dr.�Cheri Mah, a sleep doctor from Sunnyvale, California, said you should drink your favorite caffeinated beverage minutes before you want to have a quick sleep.
The caffeine will kick in around 15 minutes after consuming it, but the trick is to fall asleep before this and only have a 20 to 30-minute power nap. When you wake up, the caffeine will have started working to make you feel awake.
“If you’re able to fall asleep within that 5 to 10 minutes while the caffeine will start to come on board, then when you wake up after 20 to 30 minutes. Bam. The caffeine will have kicked in and the power nap will have kicked in,” she explained.
The “nappuccino” will give you a “temporary boost in alertness and performance” that is better than only taking a nap or only drinking a cup of coffee. The combination of both together gives you an extra wave of energy.
Research supports benefits of ‘caffeine naps’
Caffeine naps, also known as coffee naps, have been heavily researched and a number of studies have backed their effectiveness.
One study in the Clinical Neurophysiology journal examined 10 young, healthy adults who underwent five different types of naps: taking a 20-minute nap, taking caffeine before a nap, being exposed to bright light after napping, washing their face after napping and resting without sleeping.
They found that the people who took 20mg of caffeine before taking a nap were the least tired after waking up and had the best performance level. These effects lasted for an entire hour after napping, concluding that a short nap could be enhanced by combining caffeine intake.
Another report in the Journal of Biological and Medical Rhythm Research investigated the impact of a caffeine nap on alertness during a simulated night shift, where participants were asked to consume 200mg of caffeine, or decaffeinated coffee (placebo), before a 30-minute nap at 3:30am.
It found that compared to the placebo, the caffeine-nap resulted in “improved vigilant attention” and “subjective fatigue” in the 45�minutes after the nap. That means the participants who took the caffeine felt more energized and less tired.
How long you should nap for
When taking a nap, it’s important to sleep for the correct amount of time otherwise you may end up feeling worse when you wake up. As explained by the CDC, the optimal nap length is 15 to 30 minutes, which will reduce grogginess since you will likely awaken from light stages of sleep.
This length will increase alertness for a couple of hours after the nap without disrupting subsequent sleep at night. Any longer could result in sleep inertia, a temporary disorientation and decline in performance and mood after waking up from sleep.
Longer naps of 60 to 90 minutes could also be beneficial in some situations as this is the length of an entire sleep cycle. That means you will have a deep, slow-wave sleep, but end up in the lighter stages of sleep so you still feel alert when you wake up.
However, medium-length naps of around 45 minutes and naps longer than 90 minutes are problematic because you wake up during the deepest stage of sleep, leaving you feeling groggy and tired when you awake.
You might find yourself having more vivid dreams while napping than you do at night too, and it all comes down to how quickly your body slips into a phase of sleep known as REM (Rapid Eye Movement).
Try a 20-minute coffee nap today and see how you feel!
Dr.�Cheri Mah (MD, MS) is a sleep physician and performance expert who gained her medical degree from the University of California San Francisco.�She works with elite athletes and professional sports teams (NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB) to develop comprehensive sleep optimization programs.
