Naps that help instead of hurting

Short and early: twenty minutes before mid-afternoon adds alertness without eating into the night. Ninety minutes at five in the evening is a second sleep, and the night that follows pays for it.

A consistent wake time points at rhythm rather than a disturbance: often alcohol earlier in the evening, a warm room, or the anticipation itself once the pattern establishes. The counterintuitive advice that works is getting out of bed after fifteen minutes so the bed does not become the place where you lie awake.