If editorials put you to sleep, read on, a little snooze could be a good thing.
Everyone needs a nap now and then. I’m a firm believer in them. I think that naps are good things. American Naps are a way of refueling. Take a nap at the right time on a weekend, and you get two Saturdays instead of one. . . .
It was only three years ago, that BBC News quoted a Harvard Research study which suggested 60-90 minutes around 2p.m. every afternoon would rejuvenate us. I still subscribe to that theory.
But late last year, things started changing, new studies reported in Men’s Journal were touting the benefits of sleeping “as fast as possible” and smaller naps from the now-called “lazy-man’s” nap of 50 to 90 minutes to the “nano-nap” of 10-20 seconds.
10-20 seconds? That’s blinking!
Of course, if that doesn’t suit you, Steve Pavlina began talking about the uberman sleep schedule of polyphasic sleep. That’s where you sleep for 20 minutes at six different times a day–no more daytime and nighttime. One long day with lots of little naps–sort of like being a human laptop.
Now British researchers are discussing the CAFFEINE NAP. That’s right–drink one cup of coffee, and go to sleep for 15 minutes. (The coffee must shave off that extra five from the original 20 minute power nap.) According to Achieve-It, the reporting blog, this process clears your system of adenosine, the chemical that makes you sleepy. (I came across this tidbit browsing Lifehacker.)
Could I just say something? . . . What’s wrong with sleeping?
Success is not about sleeping faster. It’s no wonder someone wrote a Snark Manifesto recently. Snarky–that’s how little kids get when they haven’t had a good nap–all kinds of cranky and hard to get along with. Maybe we should all take a couple hours, have a snack and take a siesta. Not for ourselves, for the community.
Don’t even get me started on the topic of one-minute bedtime stories for kids.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
