Whether you call it a cat nap, a power nap or a siesta, a well-timed snooze during the day can feel absolutely sublime. This is especially true if you wake up feeling refreshed, energized and ready to tackle the rest of the day with vim and vigor.

“Napping is a nice way to supplement someone’s sleep from the night, especially if something interrupted the usual amount of sleep you get,” says Dr. Chris Winter, a sleep specialist and neurologist and host of the Sleep Unplugged podcast. “Daytime sleep can increase energy, concentration, focus, mood and athletic performance. We’re the only species that tries to consolidate sleep into one block.”

But sometimes napping can backfire, particularly if it leaves you feeling foggy, groggy or unmotivated to do much of anything (except crawl back under a blanket). And sometimes naps can interfere with your nighttime sleep, which is obviously not ideal.

The truth is, napping isn’t for everyone. To figure out if you’re a good candidate for napping, ask yourself the following questions:

Do you frequently sleep less than seven to nine hours at night? 

Do you often experience a dramatic dip in energy, mood and/or alertness in the early afternoon in a way that compromises your physical and mental performance? 

Do you often rely on caffeine to keep you going throughout the day? 

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you might benefit from “napping responsibly.”

The keys to napping responsibly—and effectively—have to do with timing, duration and the nap environment. One important caveat: If you’re sick with the flu or another illness, do not limit yourself to the below guidelines, as you may need extra sleep, day and night, to help you recover.

Here’s a look at how to optimize your naps, so you can still snooze well at night:

Time Your Nap Right

The optimal timing for napping is in the early afternoon—sometime between noon and 3 p.m., says Jade Wu, Ph.D., a behavioral sleep psychologist and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at SUNY Upstate Medical University. Consolidating your nap in the early afternoon means that the nap will be less likely to compromise your nighttime slumber.

“The later you nap, the more likely you are to go into deep sleep, which can interfere with nighttime sleep,” Wu says. Indeed, research has found that napping later in the day—within seven hours of bedtime—is associated with increased sleep fragmentation, longer sleep onset (how long it takes to fall asleep) and overall poorer sleep quality.

Keep Your Nap Brief

For most people, naps that last 20 to 30 minutes are ideal; you can set an alarm to make sure you wake up within that timeframe. Or, “if you have something important to do in the afternoon, try a coffee nap: Have a little coffee before you nap so that when you wake up, the caffeine is just hitting you,” Wu says. That way, you’ll be alert and ready to go.

Generally, with the 20-to-30-minute approach, “naps are like a reset button in the middle of the day,” Wu says. “They can boost your alertness and energy levels, consolidate what you learned in the morning, and clear away built-up overstimulation. They can also lead to better creativity and emotion regulation skills.”

The benefit of keeping your daytime bouts of shut-eye short and sweet is that you’ll stay in the lighter stages of sleep (stages 1 and 2), without entering deep sleep (stage 3) or REM sleep, which is where most vivid dreams occur.

“If you go into deeper stages of sleep [during a nap], you can wake up feeling groggy, with what’s called sleep inertia,” Winter explains. This temporary state of disorientation can cause declines in your physical or mental performance and your mood, declines that typically last from 30 to 60 minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Personalize Your Napping Approach to Your Needs

While brief naps are good for most people, research suggests that athletes may benefit from longer ones (on the order of 90 minutes). Among the nap-related perks for athletes are improved physical performance, greater endurance and better skills performance, including better reaction time and short-term memory, studies have found.

Those prone to insomnia should also take care with napping. While napping isn’t generally advised for people who have insomnia, that’s not a hard-and-fast rule. “For some people with insomnia, strategic napping can help because you want to go to bed later and consolidate your nighttime sleep,” Wu says. “Sometimes it’s good to have a little bit of a daytime nap so you can stay up later,” with the hope of sleeping well through the night.

The key question to ask yourself, Winter says, is: Are you napping in a way that supports your nighttime sleep, or are you doing it in a way that creates difficulties for your nighttime sleep? Think carefully about your response.

Treat Naps With Respect

Rather than letting yourself fall asleep in random places, “take your environment seriously,” advises Winter. “Go someplace that’s dark and quiet, where you can get completely horizontal.” Consider wearing an eye mask to block out unwanted light and get cozy with a blanket and pillow. If there’s ambient noise, try wearing earplugs or noise-canceling headphones. “Try to create an environment [for napping] that’s different from your work or home environment,” suggests Winter, that will keep it special and intentional.

Be Consistent

Just as your nighttime slumber benefits from your maintaining a regular bedtime and awakening time, daytime snoozing can, too. That means keeping the timing and duration of your naps steady over time. You don’t have to nap every day, but research suggests that napping on three consecutive days leads to greater improvements in motor memory learning among young adults than their peers who don’t nap.

Another body of research found that consistent daytime napping among older adults has a positive impact on their energy level, their psychomotor performance and their learning abilities. (This may be especially beneficial because older adults tend to experience more fragmented sleep and greater daytime sleepiness, Wu says.) A 2023 study found that middle-aged and older adults who nap habitually have a larger total brain volume, which could be a potential boon for their long-term cognition.