This is all well and good for people who can fall sleep right away, a 20 minute nap would mean an hour alarm since it would take 40 minutes before there is a possibility of napping.
I will eternally be jealous of people who can fall asleep immediately and/or nap. Just falling asleep is like a 30-40 minute endeavour on a good day :(
True that everyone is different, but out of curiosity have you tried a 20 minute catnap before? What was it like?
A lot of folks don't really get to sleep in a proper sense when taking this short of a nap, but even though they're still conscious they reap the energy benefits from the rest - more so than taking a more traditional break.
Yes, and sometimes I can nap, other times I just “rest my eyes” for about an hour.
I have ADHD, so for me my mind just wanders, even if I’m tired. If I can focus my mind and have it wander on a single thought it seems to be easier to doze off though.
This data is pretty dated. Your brain compensates. There's something called REM rebound to where if you don't get enough sleep, your brain will offload as much REM as possible to the end of your sleep, filling in the missing and crucial sleep cycle.
Is your brain a separate entity? You literally decide when to wake to with alarm. Or if you don’t set a time, it wakes you after x hours, after it’s backloaded all the REM.
If sleep deprivation gets too bad, it’ll completely knock you out to get as much REM in as it feels you need to function, alarm or no alarm.
Weird polyphasic sleep schedules take weeks to start working, so probably from patterns. Although if what op comment is true something else is happening too
Naps are poison to me, even a short nap means I'm gonna be up far past my usual bed time and makes the next day absolutely miserable. I'm jealous of people that can get in a good nap and still keep their normal sleep schedule.
I wish there was an alarm that could actually detect when I fall asleep and wake me up at the appropriate time afterwards, rather than just trying to guess how long it will take to get to sleep and setting the alarm that way
For me the key to a refreshing nap is not breaking it with an alarm. I can sleep 30mins or over an hour at noon and if I wake up naturally I need 5mins to "get sober" and then I am super refreshed. If I Set an alarm that wakes me up at a certain time during my nap I need waaaay longer so feel awake.
My grandmother used the keys-in-hand method. Sleeping on a couch with one arm with keys outwards. Once the hand let the keys fall she woke up. That was apparently perfect for her sleep cycle.
Yes at 1:30 you are in deep sleep, as it is believed we sleep in roughly 3 hour cycles, where if undisturbed you'll go for another 3 hours.
But that also means if you wake up after 1.5 hours, or really too early into sleep beyond 20-30, you're going to wake up all groggy and hating yourself. Anecdotally I've always made sure to sleep at least 3 hours, even if I had 4 hour of time, I'd sleep 3 and it made it so much easier to wake up.
And for those who have trouble falling asleep, I suggest to stop using falling-asleep time to gather your thoughts and relax. If you need just close your eyes at another time and do it then to clear you mind (which is what meditation is), do that. Your body is a machine that needs to be turned off in steps, like a computer. You control all the knobs.
I don't see how the part about how to better fall asleep is "invalid" because I got it wrong. I did say it seems, based on the fact I thought cycles were 3 hours. I looked it up and I'm thinking of polyphasic sleep.
My anectode still works because I was sleeping 2 cycles. So at best, part of my comment is "wrong", and that's without taking into account I wasn't saying anything other this "seems wrong".
This is what these discussions are for, if you don't like it go back [removed] on /r/science
I'm not very convinced at least about the grogginess. Usually for me is mostly random, and the reason that I don't risk any kind of nap unless I don't feel a bit obliged.