How to perfect your disco nap this party season

From deskside dozing to a quick kip in an Uber, a pre-party power snooze is key to a dreamy December
Slumber party: velvet pyjamas, £615, Sleepy Jones (net-a-porter.com)
Frankie McCoy26 November 2018

All hail the disco nap, the saviour of party season. For the disco nap is no ordinary nap, the sort that babies have, or their parents crave, or the sort into which you drift on a Sunday in front of Countryfile after a seventh roast potato. The disco nap is a kind of power nap — and yet still, it is different from the sort that digital start-up CEOs factor into their afternoon in between reflection on goals and treadmill meetings.

A disco nap is special. A disco nap is taken with one goal in mind: pure, hedonistic fun. A disco nap is the equivalent of a Monster energy drink. It is designed to shock the system out of its Deliveroo and Netflix malaise and straight into going out-out mode: transforming you from “just a glass of water for me thanks” C- you to outrageously fun, last person dancing, best night ever A+ you.

The disco nap is hedonistic, because it is strictly unnecessary. A festive survey by Liberty London claims that 86 per cent of Londoners disco nap to recharge before a night out. What that means is that 86 per cent of us are sneaking off at 5pm for a quick 30- minute shut-eye, not to gain energy to write a bestseller or find world peace or solve Brexit but to ensure you’re still standing when last orders ring.

We’re taking this as sure sign, evidence actually, that the disco nap is actually medically beneficial.

Dr Abid Malik, medical director of the Sleep Disorder Centre, confirms this hunch. “If getting enough sleep isn’t possible, then napping is the next best thing,” he says,

Of course, in December, a time of late nights and early mornings, the nap comes into its own. Never are you more susceptible to the siren call of your sofa. Once, I was dutybound to go to a colleague’s leaving party, one which started next to the office two hours after my own contracted working hours ended. Unfortunately, I’d spent the previous night with many pints of wine and making it through the day had been an existential struggle. I went to Caffe Nero, headed to the squidgy armchairs and dozed until pub time. That, I admit, was a low point. But it worked.

The science of naps, disco or otherwise.

1. Disco naps immediately after drinking can be dangerous. While crucial after a boozy lunch with a big night planned, there is a real danger that passing out in a pinot haze at 4pm will leave you feeling like someone has buried you in wet sand: dizzy, dehydrated as a Quaver and untempted by the promise of a party wilder than heyday Studio 54. If you’ve taken this nap with your contact lenses in then forget it. Festive season is over for you.

2. Long naps are a terrible idea. After about 20-30 minutes, you descend into deep sleep, the kind that waking up from feels like someone’s smacked you around the head with a dustbin lid.

3. Have a pre-nap coffee, but only if you have narcoleptic tendencies. Those digital startup exec types swear by the pre-sleep espresso because the caffeine takes twenty minutes to hit your system; therefore, when you wake up, you get the double jolt of energy natural and artificial. Theoretically, that is. In reality, unless you can switch off spontaneously, you may only have five minutes of slumber before your Nescafe bubbles up.

4. Choose your spot carefully. Unless you are a squillionaire who can afford to live in Soho next to both your office and the planned Massive Night Out, you’re not going to go home to nap. Work is an option, but only if you have a really nice or really absent boss. So this is the season to embrace the Uber nap. Think about it: a perfect 20 minutes of rest in a soothingly swaying Prius, cradling you as though you’re back in the womb, with the gentle hum of Eddie Mair Leading Britain’s Conversation as your lullaby. This is peak disco nap. Nod off and rave on.

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