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This Is How Long You Should Nap To Avoid Feeling Groggy, According To A Doctor

This Is How Long You Should Nap To Avoid Feeling Groggy, According To A Doctor

Naps don't have to leave you feeling more tired than you were before...

Joanna Freedman

Joanna Freedman

Sometimes a nap can feel like the best idea in the world, but then you wake up feeling more tired than you were before.

This doesn't have to be the case, though, according to TikTok star, Dr Karan Raj - a trained medic who has the secrets to the perfect midday snooze.

Dr Raj has been sharing tonnes of medical tips with his thousands of followers recently, but his napping intel really peaked our interest.

In a clip posted on his account, Dr Raj says: "I wanna tell you the secret to the perfect length of a nap and the best time to nap."

He then goes on to explain something he has dubbed the 'Goldilocks nap,' which he believes to be the ultimate napping formula.

"Nap for 90 minutes. Ninety minutes allows you to cycle through all the sleep stages - that's one cycle of sleep," he explains.

"Any longer or shorter you risk sleep inertia, that feeling of grogginess."

During the night, your body ideally goes through multiple 90 minute sleep cycles, each of which contain five stages of sleep.

The first four stages are non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep, moving gradually from a very light sleep to a deeper one.

You should try and nap for ninety minutes (
Pexels)

Meanwhile, the fifth stage is rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, where dreaming often occurs.

The reason it's so important to nap for a whole 90 minutes is to avoid waking up during a moment of deeper NREM sleep.

It's then that we're likely to end up feeling groggy.

Okay, we've got 90 minutes noted down, but does it make a difference what time of day we're resting our eyes?

You can wake up feeling fresh as a daisy (
Shutterstock)

"The best time to nap is between 1pm and 4pm. Sleeping any later will drop your adenosine levels too low so you won't feel sleepy at night," Dr Raj's clip continues.

"Adenosine is a sleep molecule, when it's high, we feel sleepy, when it's low, we feel alert. Sleeping reduces adenosine levels."

So, there you have it. Pssst...don't contact us between 1pm and 2.30pm, we'll be having the perfect nap.

Featured Image Credit: Pexels

Topics: Life, Sleep, health news, Health, TikTok