That desire to sleep after lunch on a workday sucks. After downing your after-meal cup of coffee, you’d think the caffeine has already betrayed you because somehow the sluggishness is still in your system. Whatever the circumstances may be, you need to function like a responsible adult. You have no choice but to get through that early afternoon slump.

But here’s something you can do.

Allot the last 20 minutes of your lunch break to take a coffee nap.

nolisoliph naps — *Photo courtesy of Unsplash*

How to do it? Just take a 20-minute nap right after drinking coffee quickly. This will make you more alert when you wake up. Be sure you’ve set your alarm clock because you don’t want to overnap and enter the realm of deeper stages of sleep.

To understand coffee nap, we need to know how the body processes caffeine. Upon drinking coffee, the caffeine stays in the stomach before moving to the small intestines. From here, the caffeine is absorbed and distributed throughout the body. The process takes 45 minutes.

However, its alerting effect kicks in just about 30 minutes after drinking. Therefore, you wouldn’t experience the caffeine hit yet before taking a short nap after drinking coffee.

Coffee naps also enable us to experience the hit not only after waking up, but also around four to five hours later after draining around two cups of brewed coffee.

That’s enough to help you power through the day.

Since we’re just talking about caffeine here, non-coffee drinkers may drink other caffeinated beverages like soda or tea. But generally, they have lower caffeine content than coffee. To know more about caffeinated beverages, here’s a database.

But you know what? Nothing beats getting enough sleep that combats depression, weight gain, and even diabetes.