#63 Be knowledgeable about Sleep Architecture
Sleep? What is that?
The amount of sleep we get in architecture school is usually a joke, especially around presentation time! I have been doing this long enough to know that sleep is our best and worst enemy at the same time. When you are well rested, you get more work done and the work is usually much higher in quality. However, you don’t get any work done when you are sleeping so it puts a damper on productivity. You might have said before, “There’s gotta be a better way.” Well, there is.
“Ok. I’m just going to go take an hour nap, then get back to it.”
How many times have you heard someone say this? Taking an hour nap is actually the worst thing you could possibly do. Instead, take a 20-30 minute nap. Heres why:
Sleep happens in cycles. How many times have you taken a nap and woke up feeling like a bag of hot-wet garbage? Grogginess is actually not a sign of sleep depravation but a sign of waking up incorrectly. Here is a great article explaining the science behind sleep architecture:
From this chart, I wrote down the times to abide by when configuring a nap into your busy schedule:
An Architects Guide to effective Nap Times:
Turbo Nap: 20-30min (30min MAX)
Quick Nap: 1hr 30min (One full cycle)
Light Nap: 2hr 50min (Very Effective)
Short Nap: 3hr 30min
Long Nap: 4hr 30min (Two full cycles)
* Anything over 5 hours I wouldn’t really consider a nap, lol.
Hope this help everyone! I know it is hard to always know how long to sleep, so this should give you some assistance so you can be as productive as possible!
Here are some articles that influenced this post:
Zeology | The Art + Science of Sleep (Diagram shown was used from this site)
Napping at school!!! 2:50 is the best!
