Naps

I am not aware of any time in my life that I did not dig naps. Maybe when I was a kid, but I doubt it. Even in high school, Sunday afternoons in my house involved naps for my parents and I. My brother was not a big fan, but that worked out OK as he got older because he would make pie on Sunday afternoon. Definitely a win-win situation.

Anyway, I love naps. I used to require at least a 2-hour time-slot for a nap. Anything less and I would just end up feeling cheated. Or I would spend the whole time wondering if I really had enough time to get a decent amount of sleep. Because oh no, I don’t waste time worrying about ridiculous things.

Lately, I have learned to accept and even grow to love power naps into my life. Maybe it’s my age, but a 20 minute snooze where I am more in la-la land than really sleeping can be remarkably restorative.

Here is the deal though, I must be at least 90% horizontal for a nap to happen. The couch works, my bed works, the hammocks on the balcony work. Sitting up does not work. Please make a note.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have time for a power nap before company comes!

When I take naps, I tend to take “power” naps. I lay down and “close my eyes” (that’s the expression I use) for 15-20 minutes and then get back up again. It’s pretty rare for me to take a nap of greater duration than one hour. It’s a funny thing, though, because usually I have to be feeling pretty drowsy to lay down and snooze, but by the time I actually put my head on the pillow I catch my second wind, or when I actually lay down, my mind starts racing with all the things I need to do which makes me unable to rest peacefully.

Chances are, if a nap lasts an hour or longer, it’s because I just lay down on the couch and doze off. The act of actually going to a bed to nap revives my energy.

My nap-taking quotient also tends to come and go in a seasonal fashion. Seems like I will go for months without taking a single nap and then, wham, all of a sudden I’m feeling generally tuckered out and will feel like I need one every day for a period of 6-8 weeks. Today happens to be one of those days I feel like taking a nap. In fact, a couple hours ago I said I was going to take one but then I got going on other stuff and the nap got lost in the shuffle.