Intro to Napping: Part 4

I have a friend. We'll call her Blaura Berrante. We were talking the other day and she said, "Chloe. This information about naps is all well and good, but how can I take a 20 minute power nap when it takes me 30 minutes to fall asleep?!" [Paraphrased]

Blaura makes a good point. If you aren't the kind of person that can fall asleep at the blink of an eye, taking short naps is next to impossible. Unfortunately, the Take a nap! book doesn't really address this issue in depth and there isn't a lot on the SleepEducation.com website (which is produced by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, so I assume it's legit).

So off to Google we go!

While many people have weighed in on this issue, none seem to have legitimate expertise in Napping as a Science. All the advice is based on personal experience, which I don't want to knock, but it's important to note.

Through my research, I found that the majority of napping advice had to do with either one's physical situation or one's psychological state.

1. PHYSICAL

• Ideally, you should find a dark, quiet area if you're serious about napping. Eye masks might be embarrassing to wear in a public place, like the library, but they block out light like whoa. So get over it.
  
• Lie down if possible. The Boston Globe says it takes 50% longer to fall asleep when you're sitting upright. Also, "There is something to be said for getting horizontal." William Anthony, Ph.D. (I just like this quote.)
  
• Get comfortable on a chair, couch or bed and make sure the room temperature isn't too hot or too cold.
  
• White Noise can be used to block out sound when a quiet place isn't available. Free mp3s can be tested and downloaded here. Also, Pzizz offers a similar thing. However, to really block out all noise, you have to crank it up, which then sounds like you're on an airplane. For me, this is too LOUD. Whatever happened to ear plugs?! Ear plugs are a painless way to literally block out the sound, not just cover it up with more noise, even if it is "white."
  

2. PSYCHOLOGICAL

• Set an alarm so you won't worry about oversleeping, but keep it out of view. I find that if I open my eyes to a view of the clock, I get anxious about wasting precious sleep!
  
• Relax. Take deep breaths and try to quiet your mind. Many, many people weighed in on this issue, offering their own relaxation methods and mantras. Suggestions ranged from telling yourself "This is the most comfortable place on Earth" to thinking about animals sleeping in the woods (?). Whatever method you use to relax is up to you, but I think it's important to deliberately do SOMETHING. Ignoring stress never made it go away.
  
• Lastly, several people on Ask MetaFilter swore that they fell right asleep after having an orgasm. While I doubt that you have time for a quickie in the middle of the day just so you can then take a nap, it's something to consider. *wink, wink*
  

Above all, I think it just takes practice to fall asleep quickly and painlessly. Closing your eyes and expecting sleep to come immediately is unrealistic for a novice napper. Especially if it's the middle of the day, you're in a crowded cafe, you have a million things to do, and you're hungry and cold. I say, quit the bullshit and schedule a dark, quiet, horizontal nap for yourself. Then write yourself a thank you note. Then reply with this Someecard. Etc.

And finally. If you can't fall asleep yourself, you should at least enjoy watching Cute Things Falling Asleep!!?!?! I'll leave you with this:





Sources:
Yahoo Answers (How do I fall asleep when trying to take a nap?)
Ask MetaFilter (I can't nap! 9/27/2007)
Mental Floss (7 Simple Rules for How to Take a Nap, 1/2/2009)
Lifehacker (A guide to power napping, 3/24/2007)
Boston Globe (How to nap)

Intro to Napping: Part 3

Happy Monday! Did you nap over the weekend? I did not, although I wouldn't have minded a shorty. My Saturdays are going to be pretty annoying the next 14 weeks, because of BIO 103 from 9am to 3pm. Nap time will be around 4pm, so please, no calls.

So I was thinking... How exactly does a person put this knowledge of napping science to good use? There seems to be a gap between the science and the practice, and I'd like to fill it in.

Seeing that the target audience of Healthy Wealthy & Wise is probably in school or working or both(!), I wanted to share a napping case study that Dr. Mednick included in Tap a Nap! This concretely illustrates how a person can incorporate napping into a busy schedule.

A Profile in Napping: The Law Student

Situation: Rasheed is a 22 year-old law school student who works two nights and one weekend day at a ladies' shoe stores in a busy mall. He wakes up at 6:45 a.m. and gets five to six hours of sleep on most nights. "I have to keep my eyes on my goals, but this regimen is exhausting. I need every free minute that I'm not in class or at work to study. But lately I don't have the energy and concentration to study as hard as I used to."

Target Areas: Rasheed needs slow-wave sleep to help clear his mind of useless information and make room for memory consolidation. He also needs Stage 2 to help him with customers at night with his usual energetic and chipper manner.

Nap Rx: One 20-minute "transition" nap after school, before going to his job at the mall; on weekends, a one-hour restoration nap after his shift, before he cracks open his books.

Benefits: Rasheed's weekday Stage 2 naps will help him stay alert and full of friendly good service. His longer weekend nap is for the law student who needs to clear his mind and help him memorize massive amounts of new information daily.

Making it Happen: Rasheed now takes his weekday naps (along with other students) in the library at school. He gets to take his weekend nap in the comfort of his own bed. "I know I won't be able to keep up this pace forever, but napping has been helping me get through these intense years, staying focused and motivated."

Yay Rasheed! I thought this was a great example of how napping can be incorporated into life on a weekly basis and be extremely beneficial. Even though he was only getting 5-6 hours of sleep a night, the recommendation was not for Rasheed to nap for 3 hours every day. Instead, he took a 20 minute nap twice a week and an hour long nap on Saturdays. That's only 100 minutes of napping a week!

By strategically scheduling "power naps" for important transitions, Rasheed was able to get a little pick-me-up before heading to his (crap) job at the ladies shoe store, which by the sounds of it was probably an excruciating retail position. But hey, we gotta do what we gotta do.

I think this sounds manageable. Would any law students like to put in their 2 cents?

2009 Fitness Goals: Another Halfsie, Pushups?

In 2008, I joined the YMCA, ran my first half marathon and starting doing yoga.

In 2009, I'd like to add another halfer and some pushups, please?


Last year, I ran the 28th Annual Stratton-Faxon Fairfield Half Marathon in June with my friend Laura and her family. THIS YEAR, Fairfield has upped the ante including MEDALS for all half marathon finishers. As if I didn't need another reason to do it!

This is a big deal. I'm not a distance runner and although I'm athletic, 13 miles is extremely daunting to me. Last year, I tried to train, but there were some extenuating circumstances that kept me from focusing as much as I wanted to (i.e. a stalker, whatever). Before the race, I think the most I ran consecutively was 8 miles. But then again, that's the number I told everyone, and I clearly I would have lied about it, so really think it was closer to 6. I finished the race, but I was running about 10 minute miles, which is not really anything to brag about.

In any case, I'm going to do it better. The race is June 28, 2009, so that gives me just under five months to pull my shit together. Most half marathon training programs are for 12 weeks or so, but I'll need to start getting back into better shape now, especially taking care of my knees.

Also, I'm intrigued by the One Hundred Pushups challenge. Following the posted program, they assert that in only six weeks, you could do 100 pushups. For reals?

I'm going to look into this more and report back. Anyone interested in trying it out?

Intro to Napping: Part 2

I always thought that some people were just awesome nappers and other people just couldn't handle it. Through reading Take a Nap and other stuff, I still think that's true, but I also think that napping takes practice, just like anything else.

As I mentioned in Intro to Napping: Part 1, I've had some rough napping experiences recently, although to be fair, any time when I am woken up by anything other than my own biological clock, I tend to want to kill something. (That first chime from my alarm in the morning is the single worst moment of my day. Or when my roommate's dog whines at 6 am when she leaves. That little bastard is lucky he can still walk.)

Anyway, it turns out that there is something of a science to napping, which, when taken into consideration, can help one avoid the negative effects of waking up feeling groggy and irritable.

Sara Mednick explains that the culprit here is Slow-Wave Sleep or SWS:

When you're fully awake, your brain is operating on many frequencies. but during SWS your entire brain rhythm has synchronized into a slow, uniform pattern. Sleep inertia is how we experience the lag that occurs while the brain once again recreates them multiple faster frequencies. The groggy feeling can become particularly acute for the sleep-deprived, since someone whose body has a greater need of SWS has a greater chance of waking up during SWS and thus into sleep inertia.

Now here comes the exciting part: By sleeping shorter or longer periods, you can avoid waking up in SWS and therefore avoid (for the most part) feeling like crap when you wake up! Yay!

The Boston Globe has a nice little napping "cheat sheet", if you will. It appears that The Guardian ripped it off here, and then Lifehacker posted it again here. Awkward.

This very blurry and small picture explains how to avoid waking up in SWS. Click to enlarge, por favor.
Bottom line: Your naps should be shorter than 45 minutes or longer than an hour and half in order to avoid SWS.

Also, Mednick says that even if you do feel a little fuzzy after a nap, you can quickly "fire up" your brain through physical activity, sensory stimulation such as splashing water on your face or a shot of espresso.

"In any case," Mednick explains, "having napped cannot make you 'more tired,' any more than a light snack makes a starving person 'more hungry.' If you experience sleep inertia (grogginess), you've simply whetted your body's appetite for a resource that your conscious mind has been trying to ignore."

Intro to Napping: Part 1

I was a napper for about two years: senior year of high school and freshman year of college. Since then, I haven't been able to find the balance between getting a restful sleep and not waking up hella groggy and irritable. (Yes, hella.) The last time I took a nap, I woke up 30 minutes late and proceeded to pick a terrible fight, behaving so ridiculously, I almost got dumped. It was decided then and there that Chloe Shall Never Nap Again. So it was proposed and unanimously accepted and written into law.

But really--what is all this napping crap about? Isn't that what BABIES do?!

True, but napping has also gained a lot of support from the Professional Medical Community in the past few years. I picked up Take a Nap! Change your life by Sara C. Mednick, Ph.d. at the library the other day, and I wasn't prepared for it to rock my world. But it sort of did.

Mednick explains that we're naturally biphasic sleepers, meaning that we want to sleep two times during the day. In fact, we're the only mammals that don't sleep multiple times in a 24-hour cycle, although no other mammals have to pay taxes either. That second sleepy phase falls right between 1 and 3 pm, which is prime siesta time.

Are you in the market for a nap? Well let's find out with the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, shall we?

Use the following point system to score how you'd react in the situations below.

0 = Would never doze
1 = Slight chance of dozing
2 = Moderate chance of dozing
3 = High chance of dozing

SITUATIONS

1. Sitting and reading
2. Watching TV
3. Sitting inactive in a public place, e.g., in a meeting or theater
4. Riding in a car as a passenger for an hour without a break
5. Lying down to rest in the afternoon
6. Sitting and talking to someone
7. Sitting quietly after lunch (when you've had no alcohol)
8. Sitting in a car while stopped in traffic

Now, add 'em up and let's see how sleepy you are.

If you scored:

• Less than 8: Normal sleep function. You might consider napping during periods of high stress.
  
• 8 to 10: Mild sleepiness. A well scheduled nap a couple times a week could improve your sleepiness.
  
• 11 to 15: Moderate sleepiness. You should be concerned that their sleepiness may interfere with daily activities.
  
• 16 to 20: Severe sleepiness. Talk to a doctor! You shouldn't be so sleepy.
• 21 to 24: Excessive sleepiness. You probably have a severe sleep disorder, so please seek medical attention if this is news to you.

How'd you do? Need a nap after that? In the next few days, there will be more on when, where, and how long you should nap. Get excited.

Yay naps!