Nappuccinos (Coffee Naps)

I’ve historically been one to frown upon afternoon nappers. How do you have the time to nap midday? Do you not have stuff to do? I was incredibly judgmental. That was until I read a book a few years ago called When by Daniel Pink.

It was recommended to me by a friend and it talks about the science and art of timing your life perfectly. In it, Pink talked about how to get the most out of a ~20-minute nap. The secret weapon? Coffee.

Pink laid it out quite well. Prior to your nap, you should down a cup of lukewarm coffee (or espresso). Don’t take your time sipping it, you should drink it as quickly as you can. After that set a timer for around 20 minutes. It will take you a few minutes to get comfortable, and then fall into a state of light sleep. At the 20-minute mark, your timer wakes you up but you don’t feel sluggish and groggy, for a few reasons:

• You never went into a deep REM sleep, which is what tends to cause the drowsiness upon waking.
• The coffee you downed prior to the nap starts kicking in after about 20 minutes. That way, when you wake up, you feel quite refreshed.

Obviously I had to try this out. I was still very skeptical.

I waited for the proper moment. I wanted to actually be tired enough to need a nap so I could give the experiment a fair shot. When I did, I changed a few things related to the setup:

• First, I didn’t actually down my cup of coffee. I took about 20 minutes to drink it. I tend to feel a bit nauseated if I drink coffee too quickly.
• I set my timer for 30 minutes. It takes me a while to fall asleep so I wanted to adjust this to the way my body works.

As anticipated, it took me a while to actually settle down and calm my mind. Once I did, I hovered in that state of sleepy awareness. Before I knew it, my timer was going off and it was time to get up. Upon waking, I honestly felt great. I didn’t feel groggy or sluggish the way I normally do after waking up from a 45-60 minute nap. I think the key here is that anything longer than ~20 minutes is too long. My timer was set for 30 minutes but it’s important to note that I wasn’t actually asleep for 30 minutes. It most likely took me about 10 minutes to fall into a sleepy state, so I was really only asleep for about 20 minutes.

Since experimenting, I’ve used coffee naps to help me through some tough days. Some of the most productive and successful people in history have taken daily afternoon naps. It’s been a great discovery for me and I no longer have the same judgemental attitude towards nappers.

Are you an afternoon napper? Is coffee a part of the process?