"Imagine yourself in a perfect world. Your mood is positive. Your brain is operating at maximum efficiency. Your body feels healthy, energetic and agile. You have enough time to complete all the tasks at hand and still enjoy the company of family and friends. Every one of your goals is attainable."
These are the opening words to "Take a Nap! Change Your Life" written by Sara C. Mednick. Don't they make you drool? Don't you wish you could beam yourself up and live in this perfect world?Well, according to Ms. Mednick, Ph.D., Utopia is but a nap away from becoming reality.
After conducting a series of studies at Harvard (2002-2003), the author and her colleagues proved that certain kinds of naps can produce improvements previously observed only after a full night of sleep. In other words, they could create "designer naps" that would allow students, mothers, the elderly and nine-to-fivers to tailor their own regimens to suit their individual needs.
If you're thinking, "Give me one good reason why I should nap," here's an excerpt from the book that is sure to answer your question.
Napping will allow you to:
1. Increase your alertness. This is, for many, the most important benefit. Whether you're on the road, observing market trends, diagnosing patients or interacting with clients, staying alert is the most important determinant of your efficiency. NASA studies have conclusively demonstrated that alertness increases by as much as 100 percent after a brief nap, even in well-rested subjects.
2. Speed up your motor performance. While most people think of motor learning in terms of an ability to play guitar chords, improve a swim stroke or perform a plié, you don't have to be a musician, athlete or dancer to benefit from faster motor performance. All of us engage in tasks that involve coordination, whether we're typing at a keyboard, operating machinery, changing a tire or bagging groceries. A Harvard study demonstrated that the speed of a learned motor performance is the same in nappers as in those who have had a full night of sleep.
3. Improve your accuracy. Making mistakes costs time, money, energy and sometimes even people's lives. While greater speed usually involves sacrificing accuracy, napping offers a valuable exemption from this general rule. So whether you shoot baskets or firearms, play sonatas or golf, cut diamonds or hair, a nap helps you get it right.
4. Make better decisions. What are you going to eat for lunch? Should you ask for a raise or wait awhile? What stock should you buy? Or should you sell? Every day, all day, we make decisions -- both trivial and huge. Of course, some decisions are so significant that lives can hang in the balance. Airplane takeoffs and landings require high-precision timing and the ability to read, monitor and react to a wide variety of controls. Pilots who are allowed to nap in the cockpit commit fewer judgment errors on takeoff and landings than those who aren't.
5. Improve your perception. Think how much you depend on your eyes, your ears and, to a lesser extent, your taste, touch and smell. Without the ability to fine-tune your sensory/perceptual systems, you wouldn't be able to hone in on the important environmental messages and filter out the mass of distracting sensory information that bombards all of us on a regular basis. Research shows that a nap can be as effective as a night of sleep in improvement of perceptual skills. Driving, cooking, appreciating music or art, reading, proofreading, quality control and even bird-watching are all enhanced after a nap.
6. Fatten your bottom line. Fatigue-related accidents cost U.S. industry over $150 million a year. Businesses that allow their employees to nap have shown decreases in errors and increases in productivity. According to the Shiftwork Practices survey issued in 2004 by Circadian Technologies, workmen's comp costs are highest where employees report the most fatigue, and claims at facilities that ban napping are four times higher than those that allow it. Judged by this standard, naps are a bargain.
7. Preserve your youthful looks. Nothing ages you like fatigue. Adding a nap to your regimen will improve skin and tissue regeneration and keeps you looking younger longer. Napping is truly beauty sleep.
8. Improve your sex life. Sleep deprivation dampens sex drive and sexual function. Napping reverses those effects. So nap now and your partner will love you more later.
9. Lose weight. Studies show that sleepy people reach for high-fat, sugar-rich foods more than people who are rested. Take a nap and not only can you resist those potato chips and cheesecake, but you'll be producing more growth hormone that reduces body fat.
The author goes on, listing eleven other reasons why we should nap -- from reducing heart attacks and strokes to reducing stress, boosting creativity, helping your memory, and alleviating migraines, ulcers, and other problems with psychological components.
If you want to learn more about designing your personal nap regimen, you can find Sara C. Mednick's excellent book, "Take a Nap! Change Your Life -- The Scientific Plan to Make You Smarter, Healthier, More Productive, " at Amazon.com.
