Can you give me some advice on how to take a short nap?

I’d like to hear what other people have to say about this. I’m exactly the same way. Once I’m down, I’m doooown.

Set your phone or another portable alarm clock and put it on the other side of the room so you have to get up, out of bed. This usually works for me. The other thing I’ll do is ask my mom or some friend to call me at a certain time. Talking right when you get up is a sure fire way to wake yourself up. Just be sure to tell the person who is calling you to actually engage you in a conversation. It doesn’t work it they just say “Are you up?” and then hang up the phone.

youu can’t get any meaningful rest unless you go into an REM phase which requires approximately 90 minutes of sleep….anything less then that is a waste of time

here’s a link with more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_eye_movement_sleep (oops, forgot how to add a link…copy and paste)

@wtf: That isn’t exactly true. There have been numerous studies on the benefits of short (20–30 minute) naps (sorry, I’ve no time to look them up right now). What you want to do is not get to the REM portion of your sleep, because, like you said, if you disrupt that cycle, you’ll be groggy. But a 20 or 30 minute nap can be very beneficial.

Here’s one Newsweek article on the subject

Get up.

@Les…Thanks…good article, and I stand corrected. As the article says a short nap can be a refresher but not a replacement for hours lost at night.

I had better luck with an alarm that came on softly and slowly increased in volume (and was across the room as Les mentioned).

This works better for me in the morning too, I used to set 3–4 loud alarms and got real good at functioning well enough to turn them off before I ever actually thought about anything.

The slow alarm seems to wake me up less harshly, so I’m a little closer to a rational human being by the time I get up to shut the alarm off. I tend to remember why I needed to get up more often rather than “Loud thing wake funkdaddy, funkdaddy smash, funkdaddy sleep” <flop back in bed>...

Never hit snooze, ever. It’s off limits. If you can’t do this through willpower, do it through force. Get the Clocky alarm clock or put your alarm clock across the room and really loud so that you have to get up to turn it off, once you’re up I find it’s much easier to stay awake.

drink a crapload of caffeine right before you go to sleep

exercise a lot

Why take short nap? Take your dose your body requires, after waking up you should feel fresh. If you don’t, then you need some extra strength or vitamin or alike.

If ever you want to take it, say to yourself that you will wake up after 20/30 minutes or you’ve got to do something afterwards.
This might also make you lose your sleep/nap

Place your alarm at a place you can hear it aloud and you have to get up to snooze it off as @Les has said.