A 5 to 20 minute nap clears your head without the grogginess of longer sleep. Keep it under 20 minutes to avoid REM sleep, which leaves you disoriented. Salvador Dalí used to nap upright with a key in his hand that would drop and wake him.
Have enough flexibility in your day to allow for 20-minute power naps. You can get a refreshment in 10 minutes. Salvador Dalí, though, was— I think he took this to an extreme. He would say, sleep upright in a chair with a key in your hand. As soon as you fall asleep, you drop the key and it wakes you up. And he would attest to that cleansing his brain. My guess is you wanna go a little bit further than that, but anybody who's taken even a 5 or 10-minute catnap, You feel the cleanse in your brain. You feel sharper. You know why we want to cut the power nap off is because we don't want to get into REM sleep, rapid eye movement sleep, that phase. Because have you ever had a nap that went a little longer and you wake up and you're like, oh, is it Thursday? Is it Monday? Did I have breakfast? Like, what is going on? It's so disorienting, right?
