Afternoon nap in Japanese is "hirune." Cave drawings from thousands of years ago depict human beings as having done many primeval activities, such as hunting for animals, growing crops, battling each other, etc. But the one activity that would be hard to monitor for historians and scientists: did people usually take noon/afternoon naps? If I were to guess, based on my experience, it would be a resounding "yes."
I don't nap that much, and I definitely fight the urge to nap during work hours after a big lunch (although, I have to admit that it's happened before). But it's the body urging me to nap, screaming, every fiber of my being telling me to nap, that makes me think that somewhere in my DNA there is a "prone to sleeping in the afternoon" gene that makes me do so. My friends and I often joke that we miss kindergarten/preschool because there was a built in "nap time" after lunch, and I agree, there should be, for the development of children, but also to increase the efficiency of adults.
I'm not advocating for an all-out naptime for adults.....an hour is too drastic, and often makes people drowsy and want to nap even more. 5- 10-15 minutes (not enough time to get deep sleep, have a dream or anything, there should be no snoring during these naps!) is the right amount of time to close one's eyes, forget about everything, and let the mind shut off for just a while and then reboot back into work mode afterwards. I personally find that my mind becomes clear after a nap, I get more motivation to work, and I think of problems and things differently, truly creating a "refreshing" effect. The alternative of nodding off constantly and having to fight the urge to sleep is unhealthy in my opinion because you're fighting your body the whole time and operating at less than full capacity.
The other alternative, of course, is coffee, which I haven't implemented much.......but why resort to the artificial, contrived way of keeping one sharp then go with the organic, simple, human solution of giving yourself 5-10 minutes of sleep? Getting up and making a batch of coffee/ running to Starbucks might take just as long. MJ disagrees.....probably would suggest more and STRONGER coffee.
Certainly, there's times I don't need naps at all........if I've slept 9 hours or more the day before (don't laugh, future me, at the preposterous notion of 9 hours of sleep) I can get through it. But if I've had 7 hours of sleep the previous night before or less, my mind doesn't function as well, I can feel my brain not operating at a full level, I'm less alert about things, and my memory is not functioning as well. I can absorb information about something, but I know that after that day is over and I've slept it off, I'm more likely to forget that information I got on low amount of sleep, and if it was a fun event I tend to not remember details about it well, get the full sensation of it.
In an alternative world where I was a neuroscience major and studied the brain, I would LOVE to study how afternoon sleep affects the brain. Sure there's probably tons of research done on it, but I also have tons of anecdotal evidence to provide.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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