The Nappuccino

How coffee and napping are interrelated.

One of my favorite books at the moment is by Daniel Pink. While I highly recommend you read the entire book, I wanted to share a great technique the nucuroscientist uses on a day to day basis, and, yes, it has to deal with drinking coffee and taking a nap immediately after. Behold: The Nappuccino.

As Pink states in his book “When” he strongly disliked the notion of naps. He, as well as I, disapproved of the lazy notion to doze off for an hour or so. What I have come to find however is not only have I been napping the wrong way, I have been consuming coffee at the worst possible times.

The worst time to drink coffee is as soon as you wake up as it negatively affects your cortisol levels. You must wait at least an hour after waking up. Furthermore, by waiting an hour, your cortisol levels rise and allows the body to react better to the caffeine. This also prevents the need to drink more coffee each morning as your tolerance will not build up.

It should go without saying, but no coffee after 4pm.

Napping, as I have now found, is great for your body, mind and performance. As long as you are napping no more than 20 mins, you will reap all the benefits. To hack this method, Pink states it is ideal to consume 200mg of caffeine (capsule form) right before taking a nap.

When it came time to test this hypothesis in a live experiment. One group received a placebo pill. The second group received the 200mg of caffeine. The third received the same 200mg and took a brief nap. When the performance results came in, the caffeine only group outperformed all, yet, the group that had injestex caffeine then took a nap “easily bested them both”.

“This article was written for educational purposes only and is in no way in relation with Daniel H. Pink, When, and Riverhead Books.”