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
- 8418 reads
Well, you need to move...
Well, you need to move to Spain. We siesta every day here. Normal working hours: Start at 9, break at 11 (a proper break, going out for a snack and maybe a beer or coffee) and lunch at 2 (lots of shops close at 1.30). Back to work at anywhere between 4 and 5.30 (and remember: Everywhere actually closes for lunch, so you can’t “grab a sandwich” and eat it at the desk). Then more work til 7.
The best thing is is that you can sleep for an hour after lunch (usually in a restaurant, and always cheap) which means that late nights out are easy to deal with.
Remember. Naps are nothing new. America just likes to sell old ideas as new. Although I bought Pzizz. V cool.