1. Naps / non-sleep deep rest
Ever since I was young, my dad worked odd hours. Whether that was as a contractor or truck driver, waking up at 3 AM was not outside the norm. This meant, however, he got extremely tired by early afternoon, and in order to resolve this issue, he would take power naps lasting no longer than 30 minutes. Till this day, he stands by them.
Unfortunately, during secondary school, I had classes until 3 PM, followed immediately by sports and clubs, which left no room for power naps. However, this changed for me in my first year at university where my class schedule provided a window of opportunity midday, and I took full advantage.
The power naps immediately became a part of my daily routine as I could sense the benefits that my dad had always talked about. I had a lot more mental clarity and energy heading into my late afternoon classes and was able to still be productive afterwards by going to the gym.
You can imagine how upset 1 was when my second year's schedule didn't allow for this. I began feeling the ramifications with afternoon crashes, especially when I was drinking caffeine in the morning.
After two months of unproductive afternoons and nights, I decided to look into the scientific literature for an answer. I was happy to find studies that affirmed the benefits of naps but was even happier to see that research was done on a viable alternative.
A non-sleep deep rest protocol is where you practice controlling your breath while simultaneously shifting your perception on which sensations to focus on. In doing so, you can enter states of deep relaxation without needing to fully go to sleep.
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There are an ample number of YouTube tutorials that guide you through these sessions that can be anywhere between 10 to 45 minutes long.
As my second year was entirely remote due to quarantine mandates, I was able to go into my basement midday where it was quiet and listen to one of these guided meditations.
This required more of a learning curve than power naps, because surprisingly trying to sit still and practice breathing without getting distracted for any longer than 5
minutes is actually very difficult.
Once applied effectively, the benefits were eerily similar to those that I felt after those naps in my first year. This became another addition to my daily routine because it allowed me to focus deeply on my work late into the afternoon and gave me the energy to train at night.
This became a lot more difficult to do when I returned to campus my third year because finding any quiet places outside of specific areas of the library was difficult.
Although I'm usually confident, the idea of sitting there with my eyes closed going through these breathing practices in front of people didn't thrill me.
That is when I went back to researching and discovered numerous recently published studies on what truly proved to be a game changer: gap effects.