Recovery Nap

A recovery nap is a short daytime sleep—ten to twenty minutes—that restores alertness and reaction time without sliding into deep-sleep grogginess. Set an alarm, nap before mid-afternoon, and keep the room dim; waking from a longer nap often means sleep inertia, and late naps push melatonin and bedtime back.

Naps work best as a repayment tool for genuine sleep debt after travel, hard training, or a broken night—not as a daily substitute for a consistent bedtime. If you need a nap every day, treat that as a signal to examine nighttime sleep first.