Naps: Endangered species in modern life?
Submitted by Merlin on October 31, 2006 - 10:22am.
TheStar.com - The modern world killed off the nap
What a bouquet of coincidence.
My Make column on napping is overdue, and yet right before dashing off to steal a rejuvenating 20-minute nap, I take a spin past del.icio.us/popular to find this little gem:
A good nap is one of life’s great pleasures, and the ability to nap is the sign of a well-balanced life. When we nap we snatch back control of our day from a mechanized, clock-driven society. We set aside the urgency imposed on us by the external world and get in touch with an internal rhythm that is millions of years old.
A nap distils the sweetness of a whole night’s sleep down to a few minutes. Ideally, it starts on a soft bed, in a dark room, with a warm blanket. At first your mind lingers on what you’ve done that day, and what you still need to do. Then your thoughts start to unravel a little, become less coherent, more dreamlike. You feel your breathing deepen, your body relax. You lose yourself; you’re asleep. After a few minutes you gradually become aware again of the bed, the room. You open your eyes, gather your thoughts, throw off the blankets. You’re a new person.
So nicely put. And, with that, Pzizz and I will say night night for now.
- Merlin's blog
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Merlin, i am firmly in...
Merlin, i am firmly in your camp on this. for the headachey-non nap crowd, I have found that the key is your personal nap TIME. For some it’s ten minutes, for others it may be 30 to forty five. Also the time of day you do it has a big impact, circadian rhythm and all that, try napping around 10-14 hours after you wake up. Thanks to pzizz, I was able to get it precisely. Seriously, this one thing has cut my stress level in half and maybe increased productivity 20%.