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Napstyles of the Rich & Famous

My pal, Penney, once told me that when she was a kid, and her family went on vacation, they would “drop the spoon” every afternoon. I knew this was a cousin of the disco nap, but I never knew it was a purported invention of Salvador Dalí, (according to QuestionSwap):

Lie down or sit in comfy seat holding a spoon in your fingertips. you should be holding it in a way that - when you loose consciousness (sleep) you drop it… the Clatter (put a big plate on the floor under your hand) will wake you…. and you get woken JUST as you enter the best “dreamy” bit of your sleep.

Related (though pretty insane, if you’re asking me) is the notorious “Thomas Edison Nap,” which, repeated through the day, is intended to stand in lieu of an actual solid night’s sleep (and which seems to have partly inspired some of the polyphasic sleep nutjobs proponents). Edison is said to have naturally needed less sleep in a day, and seldom slept very much in a given stretch, claiming that excessive sleep was a sign of laziness — and yet:

[His] co-workers noted that Edison actually slept far more than he would like to admit. Clearly, he would carry sleeping little as a badge of honor. He catnapped a lot, and his nap cots have been preserved to this day in Edison museums.

But — being a layabout and lardbrick of some considerable renown — Your Author finds himself much more attracted to the other end of the spectrum, where we find the “Winston Churchill Nap.” This is something I first learned about from mathowie, and which the great man describes himself:

You must sleep some time between lunch and dinner, and no half-way measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That’s what I always do. Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination. You will be able to accomplish more.

Yeah. That’s more my speed. Winston knew how to nap.


22 Comments
TOPICS: Napping, Sleep

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iwparker's picture

I agree with Winston

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.

andrewd2's picture

dropping the spoon

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.

mibi's picture

Re: Napstyles of the Rich & Famous

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.

CM Harrington's picture

Pzizz For the Win!

Oh, it’s all about the Pzizz. Actually, I think it was MM who first turned me onto it via the Mac Break Weekly podcast. They were running a promo, so I picked it up.

Most of the “during work” naps I take involve me falling asleep in the bathroom (yes, they’re private, singleton bathrooms) for 10-20 mins.

richarmstrong's picture

The Whole Package

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!

Chrome47's picture

Dalì and the spoon

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.

sheinow's picture

Beware

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.

CraigMaloney's picture

Similar approach

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.

baldingnerd's picture

amen - I do the same… tho

amen - I do the same…

tho people look at you weird when you have key-marks pressed into your forehead.

kmickey's picture

The JORP

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.

KC8ZKF's picture

The Earthquake Watch

When I was at USN boot camp in SanDog, we would go on “Earthquake Watch.” We would go under our racks, to avoid being seen, and press our ears to the deck to listen for earthquakes.

dineshshah's picture

Two hundred percent

“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.

ChrisR's picture

Kids

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

shawnpetriw's picture

Take a Nap! Change your life.

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."

mathowie's picture

Chruchills need a full sleep cycle

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.

chriscoyier's picture

Never

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

cement's picture

non-groggy 20 minute nap

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

CliveDobbs's picture

re: non-groggy 20 minute nap

I do the same thing, and was about to post this. I read about it somewhere in the context of young doctors doing those crazy 24-hour shifts during their residencies.

Tomage1970's picture

Siesta for Success

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.

Rico's picture

Another reason why it's great to freelance full-time

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.

chris joseph's picture

what I've noticed about napping

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.

bp_me's picture

Eames Chaise for Billy Wilder naps

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

 
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