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We want to know the strangest place you've taken a nap, but before you leave a comment below...
Stretch out on the couch after lunch, stomach full. Lay that book aside on the coffee table, and click off the reading lamp.
Close your eyes and drift.
It's OK. You have sanction for this siesta.
Today marks the start of National Napping Month, officially designated on some of those weird little Web sites that chronicle such unofficial monthly events.
This is not to be confused with National Workplace Napping Day - also a delight, but in April.
So what if Congress hasn't signed off? We approve. It's a great way to pass the languid afternoons of late summer.
NAPPING NEED-TO-KNOWS
Humans should get with the program. Most adults try to cram all their sleep into what's called a monophasic schedule, or one big chunk overnight. Eighty-five percent of mammals are what's called polyphasic sleepers, which means they nap throughout the day. Sure, they may do it because they're afraid of getting eaten if they sleep too long. But there is a middle ground, called biphasic, with one big chunk of sleep and then a nap. If we humans think we're the most intelligent life forms on Earth, couldn't we take a lesson from the animal kingdom (and teenagers)?
There's a brain benefit to napping. The National Sleep Foundation cites a NASA study of sleepy military pilots and astronauts, which concluded that a 40-minute nap improved performance by 34 percent and alertness by 100 percent.
You CAN have too much of a good thing. It's oh so tempting to roll over and get some more zzzzzs when you feel yourself waking up from a nap. And with every sleep expert in America decrying our country's chronic sleep deprivation, what could be the harm, right? But people who allow themselves to sleep too long in the afternoons wind up feeling groggy, and might not be able to fall asleep at night. The definition of siesta includes the word "brief."
Sleepless? Get some help. The National Sleep Foundation is launching a monthlong hotline on Aug. 17 to help folks with sleep problems. The line will be answered by sleep professionals Monday through Friday from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. through Sept. 15. The phone number hasn't been released yet, but you can find it at www.sleepfoundation.org closer to the opening date.
SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE NAPPERS
Courtesy of the Napping Company, founded by the same Boston University professor who brought us National Workplace Napping Day:
1. Announce your nap to yourself and to your family, friends or colleagues, so you'll have guilt-free sleep.
2. Gather your napnomic devices - favorite pillows, your favorite bed, soft music, cool bed sheets. We won't tell anyone if you need your teddy bear.
3. Make sure you have a way to wake up on time, such as an alarm clock, so you won't ruin your nap worrying about oversleeping.
4. Avoid nappus interruptus. Shut off the phone, or find an out-of-the way napping spot.
5. Revel in the nap.
6. Avoid sleep inertia - the groggy, slightly disoriented after-nap feeling - by keeping your nap to 20-30 minutes.
7. Begin to plan your next nap as you wake up from this one.
NOTABLES' NOTES ON NAPPING
"Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap." - Robert Fulghum, author of "All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten"
"I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four." - Yogi Berra, Major League Baseball legend
"I don't feel old. I don't feel anything till noon. That's when it's time for my nap." - Bob Hope, entertainer
"A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavor to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures" - George Bernard Shaw, writer who won the 1925 Nobel Prize in literature
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Sleep deprivation . . .
Happened in Officer Candidate School. A lot. Some of the guys learned to stretch out *under* their racks when they got five free minutes. If the DI came in and yelled at them, they would respond that they were down there pulling the sheets tight on the "hospital corners."
Strangest Nap
During basic training at (then) Camp Gordon, GA, our platoon, seated for an outdoor class, stood for a break. Next thing I knew, I'd had a brief dream about my mother-in-law, and was being chewed out for pushing the guy in front of me with my rifle.
Apparently, when we stretched, I fell asleep/passed out, dropped to my knees, and during my dream could hear somebody yelling, "Quit pushing!"
Although a bit disoriented, still on my knees,I was quite refreshed by my 5-10 second pause. I was told to sit outside the group so as to get more fresh air. I enjoyed the brief visit back home, "seeing" my beloved mother-in-law, and acquiring one of many "Army stories." Then there was the time on the troop ship....
Proud to have served,
Eric Stevens
The Girls Room
One day at work, I was so sleepy, I went to the ladies room. I sat down and woke myself up snoring and falling over! I them went outside for some fresh air - if you will. I was then OK. -
Naps
I'm fell asleep during the 'Man on Fire' movie. Even with little Dakota Fanning screaming "Creasy!" throughout the whole movie. I believe I was snoring too!
Thankful I'm blessed with the gift of falling asleep anywhere
1) DMV. 2) halfway up a flight of steps while playing with a friend's kid. I wasn't drunk either, just that tired to get up and find a more comfortable place. 3) hidden under a motor while field-daying during my tenure in the Navy (a few times). 4). during my last MRI, even as loud as it was.
My Special Nap
Well, once in 1980 I was on field manuvers in the Army. I was an artillery gunner waiting for a fire mission at 2:00 am. I was inside a 109 Howitzer and fell asleep standing while my forehead rested on the gun sight.
The crew I was assigned with were big practical jokers. Just when they thought I was asleep they screamed FIRE MISSION! Which, of course, almost made me crap my pants and was preceded by a gun turret full of laughter.
Diving into bed, AHhhhhh---
Having retired years ago, I've decided to tell all(strike that)some!
Driving a small truck during my day job, I was always looking for the place to nap from a busy street to a rural culdesac. Have you every considered a Bowling Alley? on top of a running Pin Setter? Mechanics frequently need to access Pin Setters while they're running and this Alley used machines that had a catwalk on top. Working a shift servicing running machines occasionally there would be stretches of undisturbed time so I would use the catwalk on a machine(under a loudspeaker that the counter-man would use to alert us to a malfunctioning machine)and nap there. Honestly, being used to machine noise is not going to keep one awake; remember those rhythmic clocks used to lull babies to sleep? Even the constant crashing of bowling balls into Pins can't stop sleep from settling onto oneself. Then there were times while stopped at red lights;shift into park and doze; the guy behind will wake you. Then there were the out-of-the-way places;the possibilities for a searching sleeper were here and there. Always loved sleeping.
Where's the strangest place you have taken a nap
In 1965 between high school and college I worked a 12-hour night shift at a Green Giant plant on the Eastern Shore. Work involved processing raw vegetables from the fields into packages of frozen veggies for the store shelves. Miserable, backbreaking work in uncomfortable positions for low pay, but summer jobs were scarce back then.
Workers got a 15 minute break at 9pm and 3am and a longer meal break at midnight. Often I was too tired to eat at midnight, so I opted for a quick nap during the break. I learned that one of the best places to nap during these hot, humid nights was inside a half-full 1000 lb. box of frozen gardem peas. Cool, comfortable, form-fitting; it was hard to beat, but I have never looked at packaged frozen vegetables the same since then.
Sooooo
Where's the strangest place you've taken a nap?
WAR
I arrived in Vietnam in November, 1967, and was assigned to a tiny Army base camp near the Cambodian border as a maintenance officer. The North Vietnamese began the TET offensive January 30, 1968. Our company had just arrived at the base and we had nowhere to sleep but in bunkers. We were pounded every evening by mortars from surrounding Viet Cong villages to soften us up for the inevitable ground attack by North Vietnamese regulars who came out of their hidden tunnels from Cambodia after dark. They would attack until the gunships arrived. One night I headed for my command bunker when the mortars came in. I suddenly got a case of the big D and ran to the two-holer first. When I sat down, my body collapsed and I fell asleep against the side. Too many days with no sleep. I dreamed I was in a war and woke up to the sound of small arms fire, about an hour later. Felt a surge of adrenalin and made it to the bunker just as the gunships arrived. The next day we found 4 new bullet holes in our two-holer. I could've died, napping in the line of "duty!"