Is your city nap-friendly? It should be
There are some pretty good reasons to nap
Let me list some:
- Better memory
- Better mood
- Decreased stress
- More creativity
- Increased Alertness
- Increased muscle repair
- Reduced fatigue
- Decreased risk of dying (down 64% in working men)
- Better performance for astronauts (the NASA study did not cover other professions)
But you don’t.
Because your city (not to mention your job) isn’t built for napping. I am a pretty bold napper, yet I have yet to lay down in the middle of a major city and go to sleep. I would be ‘homeless’, ‘loitering’, or ‘in the way’, not ‘bolstering my short-term memory’ or ‘increasing my alertness’. There’s not even a napping shop, a place you can pay for to go get some shut-eye, unless you count sex hotels (update: other countries are awesome). Sometimes I’ve resorted to sleeping in my car.
The plight of the suburbanite: tired by 2pm, but their bed is a 20 minute drive away. Besides the increased danger of driving while tired, a 20-minute power nap would then cost them over an hour of time. And 20 minutes is never enough when the need for a nap strikes.
I’m done making points, but to drive it home, here’s a list of places I have napped on my college campus (which was less than a third of a mile either way):
- several dorms
- benches by the turtle pond
- couches near the chemistry lab (I was occasionally woken for my 8am class by my professor)
- the ledge of the fountain
- couches in the student hall
- under a table in the library
- the math lab
- the meditation labyrinth
- the tree near the turtle pond (my favorite spot)
Conspicuously absent are all the times I slept during class.
If you felt a twinge of jealousy upon reading that list… congratulations, you agree with me. I hope one day soon we can all rest in peace.
Trackbacks & Pingbacks