I do something similar, although there's an added peculiarity when I do it. I lie down for 5 minutes and wake up 9 hours later.

Fwiw, i have the opposite experience of napping. Napping adds to mental fog for me especially for the hour immediately after napping. Its not until several hours later that i actually experience any loss of mental fog or increase in clarity.

It probably depends on how much sleep you're lacking, and how long the nap is.

My experience after sleeplessness nights is that even few seconds help significantly, especially when you're almost unable to function anymore.

If the nap lasts longer than 30 minutes, though, you have a good chance of feeling groggy afterwards.

Agree though it's 10 minutes for me.

When I owned some property out in the country, it was a 2 1/2 hour car trip to get there. Sometimes I just couldn't finish the drive home but pulling over to the side of the road for a 10-minute nap made me feel fully refreshed.

I had the same experience. The only trick is to keep it short, like 5-10 minutes. Any longer and the nap may bring negative impacts.