You might have seen those sleep stage graphs, or Hypnograms, that make it look like you “fall” asleep, and each stage is a hard delineation. Like this one:

sleep stage graph aka hypnogram (source)

I’ve seen enough of these graphs, and read enough about the importance of sleep, that I get anxious when lying awake waiting to fall off that first cliff. Ack! I’m not sleeping.

It’s even more frustrating to try to take a nap in the afternoon when I’m incredibly tired, and “fail” to nap, and feel like I wasted my time.

Over the years, though, I’ve noticed the sleep/wake dichotomy isn’t at all clear-cut. Sometimes, I sleep, but don’t feel rested. And sometimes, I merely rest, yet feel sleeped!

This is the secret to satisfactorily failing to nap: it doesn’t matter whether you nap (or sleep). What matters, as far as I can tell, is how deeply I relax.

A “failed” daytime nap, or nighttime sleep, where I manage to relax to the point where I feel leaden and slightly delirious is restorative.

Anecdotally, I am more likely to feel this way when lying on my back, even though I’m less likely to lose consciousness if I’m lying on my back.

Try it, and I think you’ll notice the same thing.

And as a bonus, the less hard I try to sleep, and the more I just relax, the more likely I am to fall asleep in the unambiguous, hypnogram-approved sense of the word.