Nap Time

Though the Practice Is Fading in Some Places, Experts Find Benefits In Midday Slumber. And a Few Firms Are Even Open to Shut-Eye.

By Dennis Drabelle
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, April 29, 2008; Page HE01

I never used to be a napper. In fact, daytime slumber was virtually beyond a congenitally wired type like me. My buddies would catch 40 winks on the long bus ride home from our high school, but for me that was out of the question. With age, however, my metabolism has changed. After the double whammy of a late-morning run and lunch, I'm pretty much a goner. I lie down and nod off in much the same way that Marlene Dietrich fell in love in that old song of hers: because I can't help it.
This Story

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Nap Time
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Transcript: Napping to Feed the Brain
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Asleep on the Job, and Proud of It. Sort of.

While it lasted, though, my nap resistance put me in sync with the American way of sleep: Do it all at once and strictly at night. Traditionally, we've begrudged ourselves naps. They may be forced on toddlers, recommended for pregnant women and tolerated among senior citizens with nothing better to do, but they've been frowned upon for worker bees in their prime. Recently, however, sleep scientists have discovered advantages to napping, which they view not just as solace but also as something akin to brain food. No longer written off as a cop-out for the weak and the bored, the nap is coming into its own as an element of a healthy life.

When you take a look at American history, we might seem to be a nap-friendly people. After all, some of our most productive figures napped shamelessly during the day, among them Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison. But they probably did so because, like Dietrich, they couldn't help it. Consider the daily schedule Franklin drew up for "The Art of Virtue," a treatise he worked on for 50 years but never finished: Over a 24-hour period, sleep gets allotted a mere five hours. Or take the contemptuous words of Edison: "Sleep is an acquired habit. Cells don't sleep. Fish swim in the water all night. Even a horse doesn't sleep. A man doesn't need any sleep."

If Franklin and Edison followed their own rules for success, their naps were compensatory: They conked out during the day to make up for the sleep they'd skimped on the night before. For these Type A personalities, napping may have been a badge of honor, proof that they disdained sleep as a nuisance to be beggared and cheated. (By the way, Edison may have known a lot about filaments and wires, but he was dead wrong about fish and horses.)

Napping was more valued on the other side of the Atlantic, where the habit's foremost champion was probably Winston Churchill. In "The Gathering Storm," the first volume of his World War II memoirs, the British statesman wrote, "Nature had not intended mankind to work from 8 in the morning until midnight without the refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts 20 minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces."

In southern Europe, naps were woven into the fabric of life. Offices and stores would shut down for two or three hours so that employees could go home, lunch with their family and doze through the hottest part of the day. But Spain, where the siesta is deeply ingrained, has been adjusting to changed circumstances. Especially in big cities, most Spanish workers don't head home at midday anymore (they live too far from the office for this to be practical) or use the time out for sleeping, and the siesta has become a pointless interruption that prolongs the workday until as late as 7:30 p.m. In 2005, the Spanish government canceled the siesta for its employees, although it offered them flex time for easing into the new regimen.

Elsewhere, the nap is winning friends and invigorating people. Some new studies make dramatic claims for it. Taken in the workplace, naps can increase productivity and reduce "general crabbiness," according to a just-concluded 25-year survey of the practice in industrial countries. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Haifa in Israel showed daytime nappers doing better at retaining a newly mastered skill -- bringing a thumb and forefinger together in a certain sequence -- than a control group whose members slept only at night.

Experiments conducted by Matthew A. Tucker of Harvard Medical School suggest that a 45-minute nap can enhance the ability to perform tasks relying upon memory. And Dimitrios Trichopoulos, also at Harvard, has found that among a sample of 23,000 adult Greeks, habitual nappers were 30 percent less likely to die of heart disease.

There is even anecdotal evidence that napping can enhance creativity, including a charming confession made by Salvador Dali. To prime the pump for his surrealist paintings (the melting watch, the human leg with a built-in chest of drawers, etc.), the Catalan-born artist used to take -- and abort -- a nap after lunch. He would sit down with his arms extending beyond the chair's arms. In one hand he would grasp a key between thumb and forefinger. After he fell asleep, his fingers would relax, the key would fall to the floor, the clatter would wake him up, and he would harvest the wild associations common to the first few minutes of sleep.

The recent experiments, along with a relaxation of the old 9-to-5 rigidity, have awakened employers to the benefits of on-the-job sleep. A growing number of companies either make nap rooms available to their employees or encourage them to put their heads down on their desks. High-tech firms with a youthful workforce tend to be cooler with on-the-job snoozing than old-line companies staffed mainly by veterans -- a contrast that shows up here at The Post. The paper's headquarters in downtown Washington lacks a room dedicated to naps, whereas the company's Internet operation in Arlington has a small one set aside for that purpose.

According to information collected by the National Sleep Foundation, Toyota encourages naps at its Tokyo headquarters, where they are easy to take thanks to an energy-conservation policy: During lunch hour, the company turns off its lights. In New York, those who can't find the peace and quiet they need to nap at work (or at home, for that matter) can patronize Yelo, a Manhattan sleep salon at which clients bed down for 20 to 40 minutes at a time. Yelo's slogan: "The city that never sleeps needs a nap!"

All this should please Sara Mednick, perhaps napping's most ardent advocate among American scientists: She's so sold on the practice that she calls a napless existence "the madness of monophasic sleep."

Mednick brings to her discipline not only impressive credentials (she is a professor in the psychiatry department at the University of California at San Diego), but also a popular touch: The cover of her book "Take a Nap! Change Your Life" incorporates a wheel with a dial for fine-tuning your nap schedule. You can also go to Mednick's Web site at http://www.takeanap.info, fill out a brief questionnaire, e-mail in the answers, and in a jiffy your personal nap-need index will land in your mailbox. My score fell in the "mild sleepiness" range, wherein "a nap will not only create a second day but will clear away any daytime sleepiness that will prevent optimal performance." (Churchill knew all about the nap's role as a multiplier of time: "You get two days in one," he declared. "Well, at least one and a half.")

Mednick was in Washington last month to give a talk at the Role of Sleep in Memory and Learning Conference, a co-production of the National Sleep Foundation and the Atlanta School of Medicine. She used slides and cited studies, but above all she projected enthusiasm for her favorite practice. "A perfect nap in the middle of the day," she declared, "is like a mini-night."

But hold on there, Sir Winston and Dr. Sara! Napping may be advisable for most people -- and superior, as many scientists assert, to keeping oneself artificially alert by gulping down coffee, tea, colas, chocolate and other caffeine-laced substances (a case, if ever there was one, of fighting the symptoms without addressing the underlying need). But a tricky question remains: How long should the interlude be? With naps, as with so much else in life, can you have too much of a good thing?

As an insomniac, I take a keen interest in these questions: I've found that if I nap longer than half an hour, or nod off later than about 2 p.m., I'm likely to have trouble falling asleep that night. My concerns were met on the day following Mednick's ode to the nap, when another expert at the conference, Eric Nofzinger of Harvard, drew a distinction between blissful sleepers and tossers like me: "The more you keep insomnia patients awake during the day, the more consolidated sleep they'll get at night."

When I reached Mednick by e-mail, she didn't quarrel with Nofzinger's caveat or my own qualms. "I do believe that people with severe sleep problems should be kept on a strict sleep diet," she wrote back. "What I think would be more helpful than telling [them] not to nap is getting people on a prescribed sleep regimen that incorporates naps. But only short and restricted naps."

Fair enough. Severely troubled sleepers should consult a physician about fixing their slumber, perhaps with naps of suitable length folded in. Those with less dire problems, among whom I number myself, can use trial-and-error to determine what napping coordinates work best for them. As for the lucky rest of you, you're free -- and encouraged -- to nap for as long as 90 minutes per day. (Beyond that, almost everyone runs the risk of encroaching on nighttime sleep.) The point is to inform ourselves about a practice that has all too often been sniffed at, done on the sly and snatched haphazardly.

In a country where fewer than half of us say we regularly get a good night's sleep, naps are increasingly important restoratives, and we owe it to ourselves to take them right.

Dennis Drabelle is a contributing editor of Book World. Comments:drabelled@washpost.com.

Day 4 Allergies...

You know this year totally sucks. I have been sick at least twice in the past two months and at almost the same time. This is terrible. With no insurance and having to buy it myself I'm a little reserve about buying any at all.

I'm feeling better, but as I watch the news and see winds in the inland parts it gets me scared as I will start sneezing and it'll make me miserable. At least tonight I can stay home and just chill out. It's a Lincecum night and I'm dying to see how much this kid can do. It's like my little brother is a baseball player and is taking the mound. My mind is so warped, but he is around my brother's age.

I'm just looking forward to when I can be healthy as healthy is for me without tissues and cold and cough medicine.

Horoscope: A friend or coworker suggests a scheme that seems to wild to even consider. Let it roll around in your mind, but make sure you're just as skeptical toward this as you would be if a stranger suggested it.

Bleeding Love - Leona Lewis

Closed off from love
I didn't need the pain
Once or twice was enough
And it was all in vain
Time starts to pass
Before you know it you're frozen

But something happened
For the very first time with you
My heart melts into the ground
Found something true
And everyone's looking round
Thinking I'm going crazy

But I don't care what they say
I'm in love with you
They try to pull me away
But they don't know the truth
My heart's crippled by the vein
That I keep on closing
You cut me open and I

Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
I keep bleeding
I keep, keep bleeding love
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
You cut me open

Trying hard not to hear
But they talk so loud
Their piercing sounds fill my ears
Try to fill me with doubt
Yet I know that the goal
Is to keep me from falling

But nothing's greater
Than the rush that comes with your embrace
And in this world of loneliness
I see your face
Yet everyone around me
Thinks that I'm going crazy, maybe, maybe

But I don't care what they say
I'm in love with you
They try to pull me away
But they don't know the truth
My heart's crippled by the vein
That I keep on closing
You cut me open and I

Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
I keep bleeding
I keep, keep bleeding love
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
You cut me open

And it's draining all of me
Oh they find it hard to believe
I'll be wearing these scars
For everyone to see

I don't care what they say
I'm in love with you
They try to pull me away
But they don't know the truth
My heart's crippled by the vein
That I keep on closing
You cut me open and I

Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
I keep bleeding
I keep, keep bleeding love
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
You cut me open and I

Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
I keep bleeding
I keep, keep bleeding love
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love
You cut me open and I
Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love

3-11-08 Day 200

breakfast
- none
- milk tea

snack
- 2 chocolates

lunch
- vermicelli
- bbq pork
- 2 egg rolls

snack
- 2 serving thin mints
- chili spiced dried mangos
- baby star noodles

dinner
- 2 bowls soup
- veggie
- brown rice

snack
- 1 serving thin mints
- dried mangos

Horoscope: You've got romance on the brain now and whether you're single and looking or long-partnered, you can't help but spice things up a little. Your good energy makes you even more attractive!

If I Fell - Beatles

If I fell in love with you
Would you promise to be true
And help me understand
'cause I've been in love before
And I found that love was more
Than just holding hands

If I give my heart to you
I must be sure
From the very start
That you would love me more than her

If I trust in you, oh please
Don't run and hide
If I love you too, oh please
Don't hurt my pride like her
'cause I couldn't stand the pain
And I would be sad if our new love was in vain

So I hope you see that I
Would love to love you
And that she will cry
When she learns we are two
cause I couldn't stand the pain
and I would be sad if our new love was in vain

so I hope you see that I
would love to love you
and that she will cry when she learns we are two.

If I fell in love with you

In My Life - Beatles

There are places I remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends
I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
there is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more
In my life I love you more

3-10-08

breakfast
- 1 granola bar

snack
- 2 chocolate

lunch
- turkey - ham - salmai - mustard - tomato - pickle - onion - jack cheese - sour dough
- garden salad
- lemonade

snack
- 2 serving girl scout thin mints
- 2 wheat cheese quesadillas
- baby star noobles

dinner
- soba noodles
- brocoflower

snack
- 1 serving girl scout thin mints
- baby star noodles

Horoscope: Your creative energy is fully engaged right now and you may find it easier than ever to devise inventive solutions to everyday problems. Who knows -- maybe you've got a million-dollar idea!

I finally activated my phone!

Yes, I have. It only took me 3 months to do so. Maybe a little less. Maybe exactly 3 months. Oh whatever. Here is a picture of the model. I am super slow and had I known (and I did) you could call 611 from the phone it would have been activated already. I figured well since I'm going away and I have a case for it time to activate it. I think I know how to use it.



Horoscope:

3-8-08

breakfast
- none

snack
- diet coke
- slim fast caramel bar

lunch
- sopito
- refried bean
- gucamole
- chips
- salsa

snack
- none

dinner
- 1 can diet coke
- chicken parmigiana
- egg noodle
- 2 pieces garlic bread

Horoscope: You've got two equally important tasks that are pulling you in opposite directions. Make the choice and stick with it -- you should be able to deal with the outcome over the next few days or so.

3-7-08

breakfast
- granola bar

lunch
- turkey - avocado - lettuce - tomato - wheat
- lemonade
- chocolate chip cookie

snack
- 1 small cookie dough ice cream
- diet coke

dinner
- salad
- egg plant parmigiana
- peach raspberry ice tea

snack
- drumstick ice cream

Horoscope: Others in your life are having a hard time dealing with some big, hairy situation, but you ought to be able to come up with a startling solution that only increases their admiration for you.

3-6-08

breakfast
- 1 granola bar

snack
- 2 chocolates

lunch
- hamburger
- french fries
- med diet coke

snack
- 2 chocolate
- 6 butter cookies
- diakon cake
- 1 dark chocolate covered oero

dinner
- lobster tail
- lobster claw
- daikon cake

Horoscope: Creative energy is flowing through your mind today and you may be inspired to take up the pen or keyboard. Write a love letter, blog entry, new recipe or whatever comes to mind -- it will surprise you!

3-5-08

breakfast
- 1 granola bar

snack
- chocolate

lunch
- tostada
- guacamole
- chips
- salsa

snack
- chocolate
- 6 butter cookies
- soy milk

dinner
- udon
- fried tofu
- clams

snack
- baby star noodles

Horoscope: You've got a good head for finance today, so dig in to the details of your retirement or mortgage or some other complex deal. You may surprise yourself by coming up with a real winner!

3-4-08

breakfast
- 1 granola bar

lunch
- peach rasberry ice tea
- 1 andes mint
- 3 molasses
- 1 krispy mint
- chicken parmisana

snack
- 6 butter cookies
- baby star noodles
- 1 pack fun dip

dinner
- 2 bowls beef vegetable soup
- veggies
- 1/2 bowl rice
- 1 piece meat

snack
- 1 granola bar

Horoscope: You've got money on your mind today and that means it's time to jigger with the budget or figure out some new way to save a few pennies on one of your monthly expenses. It's easy this time!

3-3-08

breakfast
- none

snack
- milk tea
- 2 chocolate pieces
- 3 peppermints

lunch
- fruit smoothie
- fried sticky rice

snack
- 2 chocolate chip cookies
- 2 wheat cheese quesadillas
- 2 pieces chocolate

dinner
- veggie
- fried tofu
- udon

Horoscope: You want the right people to notice what you've been doing lately and that should come to pass today -- even if you don't see any overt signs. Remain confident in your abilities and you'll end up ahead of the game.

3-2-08

breakfast
- none

lunch
- fruit and yogurt parfait
- 4 california rolls
- 4 goyza
- 1 bowl miso soup
- rice
- 1 scoop peach ice cream
- 1 tempura egg plant

snack
- 2 baked apple pies
- 1 chocolate chip cookie

Horoscope: Try not to worry too much about whether or not things are going to go your way -- a positive outlook is really all you need to get a positive outcome. Your hard work should really pay off!

2-29-08

breakfast
- none

lunch
- jamba juice mega mango

dinner
- expresso burrito

snack
- baby star noodles

Horoscope: See if you can trust fate, just for now. If you persist on your current path, you should find that things start to line up in the right way pretty soon -- and that you succeed in a pretty spectacular way!

2-28-08

breakfast
- 1 granola bar

lunch
- protein style burger - tomatoes - lettuce
- 1 small vanilla milk shake

dinner
- cesar salad - crutons - cheese
- raspberry peach ice tea
- lemon cake
- 2 bites chocolate cake

Horoscope: You need to make sure that you're focused and on track today, because otherwise nothing will get done. The good news is that if you push yourself, you should make remarkable progress on any task!

2-27-08

breakfast
- 1 granola bar

lunch
- 1/2 bowl fried rice - ham - peas - carrot
- broccoli beef

snack
- 1 100 grand bar

dinner
- steak
- jack cheese
- guacamole
- pico de gallo
- 1 small diet coke
- chips
- salsa

snack
- baby star noodles

Horoscope: Someone needs to hear from you about a situation that seems to have very little to do with you. Your outsider's perspective is just what is needed, though, so don't be shy about opening up!

2-26-08

breakfast
- none

lunch
- armenian bread - lettuce - tomato - ham - avocado wrap
- chocolate chocolate chip cookie
- fruit
- ice tea
- quiche

snack
- 2 wheat quesdaillas
- 2-4 cookie
- 3 servings almond cookies
- baby star noodles

dinner
- noodles
- soup

Horoscope: If your mate seems a bit skittish or needy, it could be that you're coming across as cold or uncaring -- though of course you aren't really feeling that way! Try to reach out, even if it feels artificial.

2-25-08

breakfast
- 1 granola bar

lunch
- 1 soft taco
- regular taco

snack
- 1 20oz diet coke

dinner
- 1 piece bbq pork
- 1 piece roast duck
- veggie
- fish
-1 bowl soup
- 2 bowls sweet tofu
- beef
- 2 piece fried tofu
- 1 piece stuffed eggplant
- rice

snack
- 3 serving almond cookies

Horoscope: You and your friends have a lot to do today, or at least things feel more intense than usual. It's a good time to make plans together and think about what you want to do in the future.