UAEBiker

Hey, so i have started riding before school at 6 and so i have been getting very little sleep. How long is a good time to be taking a nap in the afternoon. Can sometimes i take a nap and feel more tired and others i feel refreshed.

Jarery

Do some googling of sleep cycles. You'll find 90 min increments work best for feeling refreshed. Anything mid way between 90 min increments and you'll feel like crap, regardless of total length of time.

Machka 

What Jarery said.

The adult human has a REM cycle that lasts 90 minutes. If you sleep an entire REM cycle, you can wake up and feel refreshed. However, if you cut that REM cycle short (i.e. sleeping only 60 minutes) you may wake up still feeling half asleep and really horrible.

If you cannot get 90 minutes because you don't have time or whatever, sleep for less than 30 minutes (i.e. a 10-20 minute nap) so that you don't fully enter the REM cycle.


The information above revolutionized the way I do long distance riding ...... and the way I handle my University homework load!

UAEBiker

Thanks for the info. Will keep it in mind for University next year.