I take a nap every afternoon without fail. I suppose you could call it a habit by this point. In any case, it usually lasts about 20-30 minutes, but there are days when I need more like an hour or two. I have found it to be true that I can be far more productive after a good nap, and it doesn’t seem to impact my ability to fall asleep at night either. Perhaps I just excel at sleep.

As I flex my eyebrows, grit my teeth, and wiggle a cigar between my fingers I say “I drop the spoon” every afternoon too. Wink wink. Very refreshing.

The problem with some naps is that if you don’t time it right you can never really recover from a nap, being sleepy the rest of the night.

I used a little prog called pzizz.com to nap train myself.

Oh an its always best to wake up from a nap when its light out, never nap at dusk.

According to the tour in the Cabinet War Rooms in London, Churchill started the day with a pint of port at breakfast… A pint… of port. One should be careful in implementing only part of a successful system. Bottoms up!

The way Salvador Dalì did this was his secret to creating those fantastic paintings without the use of hallucinogenic drugs. He prepped his canvas, his paints, everything, and leaned back against the wall, holding a spoon in his hand, and as he hit that weird psychedelic dream state, he’d drop the spoon. The clatter would wake him up, and viola, another surreal (and disturbing) masterpiece.

Last time I went for a recharger nap around 5:00pm on a Sunday I accidentally slept till 2:00am. This was not tragic, and I just turned over, set my alarm, and slept till 6:30 when it was time to get up for work. I guess that’s what happens when your exhausted some times, but It does mess with ones sleep schedule.

I do a similar approach with the spoon and the plate, but I substitute my forehead and the keyboard. The gentle sounds of the computer beeping that it’s had too much input at once gently wakes me from my slumber, refreshed and ready to take on the day again.

When i was in the navy, we had 90 minutes for lunch. The key was to scarf down your food as fast as you could, then run up to your stateroom for a Junior Officer Rest Period.

The key was learning to sleep on your back so that you didn’t have pillow marks all over your face when you got up. Everyone did it, you just didn’t want to leave evidence of it.

“I don’t drink. I do not smoke. I sleep a great deal. That is why I am in one hundred percent form.” - Field Marshal Montgomery

“I drink a great deal. I sleep little and I smoke cigar after cigar. That is why I am in two hundred percent form” - Winston Churchill

I once calculated that Winnie smoked around 150,000 cigars (about $3M worth at todays prices) over his lifetime. That’s why a cigar vitola (size) was named after him.

What a guy.

Since becoming a parent not only do I have sleep debt, but I have a sub-prime sleep mortgage with negative equity.

For a great book on the benefits and "method" of taking a nap, I suggest the book by Sara C. Mednick, Ph D. "Take a Nap! Change your life."

I wanted to add in addition to the “real” nap that a Churchill Nap gives you, I don’t do it for 20 or 30 minutes at a time. I often wake up startled or confused or just plain tired, so I try to stay away from brief catnaps.

A full Churchill as I call it is a 90 minute long nap. 90 minutes is about a full sleep cycle and I always wake up feeling fully rested and ready to go. I don’t do them daily, maybe once a week or so, but I will usually go down when my post-lunch tiredness hits around 1:30pm. I’ll spring back to work around 3pm and continue until dinner.

I haven’t napped in years I bet. From what I recall, it just makes me more tired. More relaxed…but more tired.

I drink a cup of coffee right before I take a nap. The caffeine kicks in around 20-30 minutes so I can wake up without feeling as groggy. Probably won’t work for everyone, but it does for me. I read this somewhere and did not make it up myself

This is one activity that our European friends do so well - the afternoon siesta - and they live longer. I try to do it at least 3 days a week. I agree with Mr. Churchill and make sure my bedroom is as dark as possible, take off my clothes and climb into bed. I set an alarm with my favorite energizing music to go off in 35 minutes, get up, take a 5 minute shower, dress and resume my day. My productivity is high until 7-8 pm, and it doesn’t effect my evening sleep.

Naps keep me fresh and alert enough to do stuff. And since my employer has recently banned naps in the office, I even want to freelance full-time even more.

is that you come to depend on THAT nap, and your morning is geared towards finding it. Making it through till nap time becomes your productivity wasting endeavor. If you ever have to miss your nap for whatever reason, the rest of your day is even more miserable.

Go to bed half an hour earlier. Stay awake and focused all day. I used to be notorious for my lunch time nap, and even though I’d been a good performer, I know that I’m much better now without it.

In 1955 while filming on location, director Billy Wilder discovered he could take quick naps on a plank held up by sawhorses. This prompted Wilder to tell his friends Charles and Ray Eames that he needed a narrow office couch.

more info here: http://rodcorp.typepad.com/rodcorp/2005/04/howwework_bil.html