Yesterday I talked about how skin care goes to the wayside when I am in the middle of kidding season, and last night, by the way, I whipped up some beneficial body butter! The other malady during kidding season is a lack of sleep.
Without sleep we find ourselves with less control of our thoughts and our emotions. It becomes difficult to focus, and it can even be dangerous to be a "walking zombie," as I sometimes call it.
My dear beloved sister recently expressed the humour that she finds in my very short and beneficial naps. To prove my napping point I did some research!
There are 5 stages of sleep. The first stage, drifting in and out, lasts approximately 10 minutes. The next stage, when the brain activity slow, lasts about 10 minutes as well. The 10-20 minute power nap is so very beneficial because it carries a person into the stage where the brain is no longer hard at work. It has been noted that when a nap exceeds 30 minutes, it can actually cause the napper to not be able to shake off the grogginess, stemming from the napper entering into too deep of a sleep (past stage 2).
The most beneficial power nap time is between 1PM and 3PM for most folks, when the afternoon dreariness sets in.
While researching naps, I remembered some very successful folks that also take a daily power nap. The nap that revives the person so they can concentrate, and be successful throughout the afternoon. One such person is George Armani, I recently read about his mid-day power naps on his blog. Albert Einstein was another that swore by power naps, as well as many past presidents, and Thomas Edison.
To wrap this up, if you need a nap, you are not being lazy, you could possibly use the 15-20 minutes to slow the brain down a bit and revive! I wish you great success with it!
5 comments:
Mary, you're preaching to the choir here, I catch a nap whenever possible.
Be sure to get you're naps in each day.
Oh yeah! I'm all about a power nap. Sometimes it's just what you need to finish out the day.
Ah, REM sleep... I remember it well. With a snorer in the bed, I rarely sleep well. Last night I took myself to another room. Oddly, it took me forever to drift off. Menopause may be contributing, and old age, but I miss the days when I slept like a rock.
And I don't even have baby goats to blame. B-a-a-a-a-a-a-d times.
I think because my internal clock is just a little different than my friends and family ( always has been )my power naps come about 6:30 p.m. and if I fall asleep, I am up and raring to go by 7:30, 8:00. And I go for hours....see, I am up now!I will probably go to bed in 2 hours and sleep for 6 hours and be ready to go full steam.I am fortunate to have a husband who is O.K. with my hours seeing as he is an early bird and morning person!
Good post, because I think many busy people, especially women, fail to take into account how lack of sleep can be detrimental to our thinking and reasoning processes, eventually taking a toll on our health.
Sweet picture, I remember those days where I didn't get much sleep during kidding season.
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