Did modern life kill off the nap?

Did modern life kill off the nap?

Does anyone know me? Does anyone know what I do every day? Does anyone care? See, I deal with a lot of emails, calls, and even letters sent via snail mail. I have a nice big, solid desk. I have a matching credenza and hutch behind it, along with a matching library (fancy word for costly “bookshelves”). I am preparing to add a second library to the suite, as I’ve run out of space for storage for my “essential” books at my desk.

As I sit at my desk, reading correspondence in a variety of formats, the thing that strikes me is that people absolutely do not know how to sleep. Because of what I do, it’s a good thing I do know what good sleep is, and that don’t hold back in telling people they need to adjust their sleep habits.

Just what do I do? That’s a question I often find myself asking, especially at the end of a long day. I write. I edit. I design layout for a variety of materials — print and electronic. I prepare budgets. I edit audio. I edit videos. I write and edit copy for broadcast. I help create audio and videos, some of which are designed for training, some of which are designed for individuals, some of which are designed as public service announcements, some of which make it onto publicly-available Web pages, but most go on CDs or DVDs and are shipped out to others. I review applications for completeness and documentation for a few different national relief programs, hoping to be able to assist folks who are truly in need of help. I develop new concepts and ideas, eventually presenting many of them to a Board, hoping to win approval for at least the “biggest” and “best” projects (as seen by my mind’s eye). I lead the projects — from start to finish. I play with all sorts of technology-based tools. I have (and use) more software programs one my computer than most people have ever used in their lives. I do a heck of a lot more, too.

Okay, let’s cut to the chase. I do work for Awake In America, a national non-profit (501(c)(3)) organization focused on sleep and sleep disorders. We help others around the country launch community education groups and support groups, but we also work to educate primary care physicians and other health care providers about the importance of proper rest. Too often in modern society if someone says, “I’m really tired,” they are called a variety of names, classified as a slacker, and shunned. Being tired, allegedly, is a bad thing. But is it? Not a chance! Our bodies, like those of every other critter now (or ever) on the face of the Earth, have this innate desire to sleep, and that’s a good thing. Sleep, in its basic state, is designed to give us “down time,” or a “time to recharge.” If you explain this to your boss, well, the conversation may not go as well as the ones I have with managers, human resource departments, safety teams, and others, at corporations on a regular basis.

I also serve as coordinator for Awake In Philly, a community education and support group in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania region. Operating much like Awake In America, the local group serves as a source of information in the real-world for people with sleep disorders and sleep concerns. The group holds monthly meetings several months each year, taking off, generally, during Summer months when people are generally on vacation. In addition to the support group meetings, Awake In Philly provides a source of information for patients, educators, schools, health professionals, businesses, and others, about the importance of proper sleep, sleep hygiene, and other related issues. The group works with local and state officials in several states, as well as having worked with federal officials on many issues, including travel restrictions and guidelines imposed following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.

One of the many things I get to do is talk with people who have been diagnosed with sleep disorders, including sleep apnea, insomnia, and restless legs syndrome (RLS). What’s a sleep disorder? In short, it means people try their best to sleep — to get good, solid rest each night when they go to bed, but because of a sleep disorder, they never wake up feeling rested. No matter how much time they spend in bed sleeping. If they spent 10 hours in bed each night, they could still wake up the next morning feeling exhausted. Some of the people I speak with have spent more than 16 hours a day — every day — in bed, yet never feel awake. That’s right: they sleep their lives away, and the more they sleep, the more sleepy they feel when they awaken. Doesn’t the world of sleep disorders sounds absolutely wonderful? It’s for this very reason that I reach out to help like I do.

There’s an article in the Toronto Star from Sunday, October 29, 2006, titled, The modern world killed off the nap, by Kurt Kleiner.

Kleiner, is seems, is quick who is quick to point out, both to the Toronto Star‘s readers as well as to his wife, that he is in good company with other nappers who have historical importance. To make his case, he rattles off the names of “Napoleon Bonaparte, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, and Winston Churchill,” adding that they all “were nappers in the heroic vein.”

Arguing his case, Kleiner adds that “Samuel Pepys, the 17th-century diarist, would sometimes have a nap in his office after a boozy lunch.” He quickly follows that up with a note about “the world’s most famous insomniac,” writing that Marcel Proust’s “alter-ego in In Search of Lost Time, slept poorly at night but always managed to have a little nap before dinner.”

I would have to agree with Kleiner’s note on Proust, adding a personal note about napping around meal time. As long as you don’t miss the meal, a nap just before or just after a meal is always good. After a meal, though, if you do nap, it’s always good to sit up or sit in a recliner to nap, at least that’s my preference. It may not help with burning any extra calories, but it sure seemed to help with digestion, or rather, should I say, prevent some unwanted indigestion.

Penning his thoughts on Michel de Montaigne, the 16th-century French essayist, Kleiner notes that de Montaigne said “nothing about his personal napping preferences, but he writes so admiringly of ancient generals who napped before their battles (and sometimes even during) that I’m sure I detect a fellow napper.”

From my chair, it seems Kleiner takes his napping rather seriously, almost to the point that I am beginning to wonder if Kleiner may possibly suffer an undiagnosed sleep disorder. Or, perhaps Kleiner is victim of the 24/7 societal mentality that dictates you run and run and run, and if you stop for rest, you lose. Both are equally bad.

Over on LifeHacker.com, though, I found a post about Kleiner’s article, which was made by Gina Trapani, the site’s editor.

In her post, though, Trapani said:

“Power napping is pretty impractical for 9 to 5ers working the office job, but as Kleiner points out, ironically it could help you out during the afternoon slump a lot more than that trip to the coffee machine. Does a short afternoon nap leave you feeling refreshed or just more sleepy?

Trapani wanted people to post their napping secrets. Publicly. Well, some may, but I never would. Heck, back when I was in the day-to-day corporate world, I made it a life’s mission to develop power napping techniques that would work for me. Then again, I think I’ve been doing that kind of stuff all my life. Needless to say, I did not divulge my deep, dark secrets. The world is at a great loss for that. Trust me.

According to Kleiner’s article, “Sleep experts say a lot of us really could use that nap.” He wrote that James B. Maas, a sleep expert teaching at Cornell University, as well as author of Power Sleep : The Revolutionary Program That Prepares Your Mind for Peak Performance, who says most people don’t get enough sleep, always noting that an afternoon nap can help most everyone.

Kleiner said it was Maas who coined the term “power nap” as a means to emphasize that naps may help a person more productive and energetic. I’m not sure about that, as the term “power nap” being in my vocabulary back in high school, and that was in the early 80s.

I had the opportunity to meet James Maas back in 2001, actually, on September 11, 2001, when we spent several hours together. It was a lousy day to meet someone, but he and I, along with several others, were scheduled to be at the CBS Broadcast Center to be interviewed for a show that was to be taped that morning. Evidently, plans changed.

Maas has a lot of good information in the book, and I push copies on people all the time. I wish we could find a donor to donate copies to us so I could get even more copies out to people who are overworked, over-tech’d — you know, the folks attached at the hip to their Crackberries, cellphones, laptops, a few flavors of desktops, i.e., Windows, *nix, Apple, and *nix, (Hey! Just how many computers can you get in one office?!), and, as the many stories, including one a few years ago comparing life in the Middle Ages to life 100 years ago to life in the 21st century, the invention of the light bulb was the turning point for many nasty habits. It was the light bulb, using that thing many people just a century ago called “the Devil’s tool,” electricity, changed life. Permanently.

Was the ability to harness the forces of electricity something that provided for the “better” for society, at large? Well, that’s a hard one to answer. Desktop computers were supposed to bring about the paperless office.

Kleiner does have something very powerful in his article, that, from placement in the overall article, doesn’t seem that he saw it for the golden nugget of truth it actually holds. He wrote:

Sara C. Mednick, a psychologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, Calif., has gone a step further. She says that naps can help even people who get plenty of nighttime sleep. In the lab, she took well-rested subjects and tested them with and without naps. She found that those who napped did better on various tests of cognitive performance than those who did not.

“Many famous, successful people have been using this as their secret tool,” Mednick says. “What I’ve always found is that the CEO is usually the one who’s allowed to nap. It’s a huge leap, I think, for bosses to consider letting employees do the same thing that they do to be productive.”

Now, that said, it’s time for me to dim my halogen desk lamp, crank the fan on low, switch the mp3 playlist, and set my timer to go off in 25 minutes. If you need me before that, sorry, but I don’t know what to tell you. I am busy.