100 Business Days Out: Day 72 - Nap Time

The first nap I remember taking was in in kindergarten. I think I remember it most not because it was a nap but because I wanted to be sure my blanket was next to Joy Kraft's. The next time I remember napping regularly was in college. Those were some glorious naps. The next napping I can remember were the few times I went to Spain and we broke meetings in the middle of the day and we all went back to our hotels and napped. Other than that, napping (other than the occasional weekend after a long run nap) has not been a part of what I do. However...I have been napping on and off over the last month while here in Rhode Island. We have a pretty set routine and part of it is to be on the beach from noon-ish to 4pm. Well, somewhere in that first hour on the beach (Patti says it is within the first 15 minutes) I put my book down, tilt the Rio Beach chair all the way to the furthest notch and I go horizontally into a deep sleep...a beach nap. And, is it ever wonderful! I usually wake up from someone yelling something and it is a startled wake, but man am I refreshed when I wake up. And for the rest of the day, I feel like I have lots of energy. And best of all, I am not feeling like I must go to bed at 9pm because I can't keep my eyes open. Thus, this leads me to the next question, if I feel so good with a little short nap every day, then why don't we build this into what what we do everyday? Yes, I know, it's not practical...but why not? I think I know why, it comes down to pride. If I wanted to take a nap everyday when I was working, I could have. All I had to do was make it a priority and swallow my pride and then do it. It's kind of like exercise isn't it? We make that a priority and we block off parts of our days and let others know that we are going to the gym or for a run don't we? It's the other side of pride on that one. We are proud to go do that for ourselves and it shows a sign of strength, but, a nap would be a sign of weakness and we just can't have that even though the nap may well be more restorative and better for our productivity than our rigourous time at the gym. I'm on the campaign for the restoration of the kindergarten nap time as a part of the new workplace! (I would suggest though better blankets than I had in Kindergarten and we might want to separate the boys from the girls. :)) In the meantime, I'm going to keep practicing what I preach for the rest of the summer.