Feeling Drained? Here's How to Take a Coffee Nap. Two great tastes that taste great together.
By Nina Zipkin
If you're exhausted but have to power through the rest of the day, you have a few options at your disposal: you can grab that extra dose of caffeine or pull yourself away from work to take a quick nap.
But apparently, if you combine the two, science says that you'll actually be more productive than if you just rely on one or the other.
Related: Do You Drink More Coffee Than Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Other Creative Leaders?
Here's how it works. Consume caffeine then immediately go to sleep, but only for up to 20 minutes. More than 20 minutes and you'll fall into a deeper sleep and find it tough to get going again. But within the 20-minute sweet spot, the sleep will help clear your head and by the time you wake up, the caffeine will have hit your bloodstream, ready to help you feel more alert.
A couple of studies reflect this. An English study found that with coffee and a 15-minute nap, participants made fewer mistakes in a driving simulation. A Japanese study found that when participants took a coffee nap, they did better on memory tests than those who just consumed caffeine or napped.
Would you give this a try? Let us know.
