Just curious how many of you take naps. Personally, I love to take long naps whenever I can. On nights I don't swim I usually take a two hour nap when I get home from work. On days when I work from home I'll usually nap if I've got at least an hour of free time before I have to leave for the pool. This does cause me to miss workouts on occasion when I don't feel like getting up! I also like to take two hour naps in the afternoon on weekends when possible, even though I usually get eight hours of sleep or more on the weekend. As you might have guessed, I don't have any children!
I know some people rarely if ever nap and others prefer much shorter naps. How about you?
Now that I'm retired, I don't have the time to nap like I used to while I was working. My favorite nap is 90 minutes. It doesn't seem to disturb my 8-9 hour nightly sleeps.
I usually nap every day (Mon to Fri, at least) just after lunch before I go back to work in the afternoon. All I need is about 10 to 20 mins and I feel like the bees knees. Completely rejuvenated and ready to tackle the rest of the day. I like to have a cup of coffee just after waking up.
I was just about to post something on Facebook about this!
I nap every day and I love it: 15-30 minutes.
When I lived in Spain, I saw a news segment on the science of the siesta. Basically, the human body isn't designed to go 18 hours w/o resting, so a quick power nap refreshes the body. A 15 minute nap in the middle of the day = one full hour at night!!
However, they were explicit in stating that it should never be more than 60 minutes b/c that will screw up your internal clock.
Here's how it works: take the number of hours you sleep per night (say, 7), divide by 2 (3.5 hours). Add 3.5 hours to the time you go to bed (say 11pm + 3.5 hours = 2:30am). Then go 12 hours out from the mid-point of your sleep. At 2:30 pm, 15-20 min nap and you're soooo much more alert and productive the rest of the day.
While I'd love to have the chance to take a nap daily (or even twice a day), realistically it rarely if ever happens. I'm not sure how kindly my boss and co-workers would take to it if they saw me nap; I do have an office and can close the door/blinds, but I think that would raise suspicions. I have seen some co-workers go to their cars to nap, which can work except in the summer.
Occasionally I'll get the chance to, "veg out," if not a formal nap after a long Sunday run. I typically run in the morning, have a big breakfast....then like to have a chance to just do nothing (watch some TV, read the paper, etc).
Back when I was in the Army, there were several people who used to eat lunch as soon as the dining hall opened (around 11:30), then nap before returning to work at 1PM. However, I usually had my swimming back packed and ready to go in my car, I swam for 45 min, then got back, ate lunch, and went to work.
