Guilt Free Napping

I took a long afternoon nap the other day. I set the alarm for an hour and passed out, hearing my own faint snoring as I drifted into dreamland. Nothing is quite as wonderful as a late day nap on a non-work day. Obviously I don’t sleep at work. I don’t sit for long stretches unless I’m in front of the computer. I move around a lot, walking the distance of the warehouse and retail store multiple times per day. I sit down to type up orders during slow times and screw around on facebook enter quotes for customers. Mostly I go from walking to hustling. Reading puts me out, after a few chapters my head starts bobbing like a fishing lure.

Napping like this reminds of the days I used to get up early on Saturdays for landscaping. This was before I had a part time job, so likely around 14 or 15 years old. My brother and I both worked for a teacher who had a mowing business in the summer. The summer work was short but the mowing, raking, trimming and leave blowing went on till early in the fall. Saturdays started around 6:00 am and finished around 1. By the end, we were exhausted. College football and naps followed quickly after. I rarely made it through a full game. Day time sleeping always makes me feel a little guilty, like wasting time.

But really, who cares if you like naps or if you don’t? For me it’s an old view that naps are for the lazy. Why is my inner voice always shaming me for dozing off? Is it that old Protestant work ethic fighting for space in my conscience? Proverbs alone list ‘laziness’ in multiple spots and multiple ways. “Go to the ant you sluggard, consider its ways and be wise” (chapter 6:6). Why should naps get lumped in with that shameful fool from the Proverbs the “sluggard”? It’s pretty obvious Solomon was describing avoidance of work, not a welcomed snooze after a hard day. But the image of the daytime nap, as fit for a bum persists in my mind. Some things take willful courage to get over, at least until the snoring kicks in. Besides is watching 2 hours of TV really better than collapsing on the chaise like an overfed St. Bernard?

 Some cultures work napping into the daytime routine, to the point where afternoon business slows to a crawl. I noticed when I was in China how the afternoon work basically stopped, especially in the summer. The laborers even took long breaks and even napped after lunch in the shade. Same thing for the shops and restaurants in town. Chinese teachers know how to deal with post lunch grogginess, sack out on the office couches before afternoon classes begin.

 As an English teacher I lived at the school and early on, tried to get administrative stuff done during the lunch break. I’d march into the secretary’s office and wake them up to help me with some meaningless chore. I’m sure they rolled their eyes every time I barged in demanding they interpret some obscure bit of paperwork. Or I’d ask the IT guy to wake up and fix the internet connection. Hey don’t blame me, fix the modem man I got baseball scores to check! I learned to relax a little more with every passing month. They work long days (8 am to 8 pm) during the week and they only got every other weekend off.  A brutal schedule for anyone. I never got hip to their daily nap routine though.

I’m sure there are studies that show improved memory and alertness go up with short naps in the daytime. I’m a believer in the adaptability of the person though. Each one of us is unique, but despite that we can also get into a regular pattern of efficiency with or without naps. We might need to eat less during the day or sleep more at night, but efficient people thrive because they want to, not because they took a 30 minute snooze. Most of us have had to work a different schedule at some point in life. I feel much better with a regular 9 to 5 type schedule than an evening shift or a midnight shift. But I’ve done all 3.

Other than the laziness quirk I’ve always had about napping, there is the very real problem of wasting a good chunk of the day with a 2 hour siesta. On those days the napping is so good we reset the alarm for another hour, and another. When we finally roll off the couch and stumble to the kitchen and notice the clock. We’ve slept through another afternoon. Napping feels like disengaging. Not the good kind either where you unwind and de-stress, the “has-anyone-seen-Adam-this-year?” kind. If it leads to avoidance of projects or learning or spending time with loved ones it’s probably laziness. I guess that’s what Solomon was getting at. Sluggards or not, snoozing till late in the day feels amazing until the shame factor kicks in.

Now I love to nap after a long run or long week. It’s like a little reward, especially when football is on.