Why Take A Power Nap?

Why take a power nap? This is the single best question any human being has ever asked, right up there with “Is cake acceptable for dinner?” and “Can I stay in bed until next Tuesday?” 

Let me start by saying that sleep is not just something you do at night when you have nothing better to do. Sleep is a superpower. And the power nap is the tiny, portable version of that superpower that you can use during the day to turn yourself from a slow-moving, confused creature into something that vaguely resembles a functioning adult.

Here is the situation: you are halfway through your day. You have already done so many difficult things like getting out of bed, putting clothes on, and saying words to other people. Now it is about two o’clock in the afternoon. Your brain, which was working perfectly fine at nine in the morning, has suddenly decided it has finished all its work for the year and would very much like to shut down. Your eyes feel like someone has put tiny bags of wet sand behind them. You are staring at your computer screen or your notebook or the person talking to you, but all you can actually see is a soft, blurry fog. You try to drink coffee. You try to stand up and stretch. You try to slap your own face gently just to remind your body it is still alive. Nothing works. You are running on empty. This is exactly the moment when you need to perform the greatest act of self-care known to mankind: THE POWER NAP. 

Now let me explain exactly what a power nap is, because a lot of people get this wrong. A power nap is NOT sleeping for three hours and waking up at six o’clock in the evening feeling confused, guilty, and wondering what year it is. That is called “ruining your night sleep” and we do not do that. A power nap is short. It is usually between ten and twenty minutes long. It is like pressing the reset button on your brain without completely turning the whole machine off. You close your eyes, you stop thinking about bills and emails and whether you locked the front door, and you drift away into a lovely quiet place where nobody needs anything from you and nothing makes sense and it is wonderful. People who do not understand the magic of napping will say things like “Oh you shouldn’t nap during the day it makes you lazy” or “Real productive people never sleep before sunset.” These people are wrong. These people are walking around with brains that are overheating like an old car engine, and they think being tired is normal.

Being tired is NOT normal! Being tired is your body shouting at you “HEY I AM WORKING TOO HARD PLEASE GIVE ME FIVE MINUTES OFF OR I WILL STOP WORKING ENTIRELY.” Taking a nap is not being lazy. Taking a nap is being smart. It is like stopping to put petrol in your car instead of driving until it stops dead in the middle of the road. When you wake up from a proper power nap, it is like magic. Suddenly your eyes open and you can see again! You remember what you were supposed to be doing! You can form sentences that actually make sense! You have energy again! You feel like a whole new person, or at least like the same person but with fresh batteries. You can go back to your work or your chores or your conversations and do them properly instead of just staring into space and nodding at everything hoping nobody asks you a question. 

There are also other excellent reasons to take a nap. First of all, it is the only time during the day when nobody expects you to do anything. You cannot be asked to answer the phone, or make tea, or fix something, or listen to someone’s long story about their cat, because you are asleep and that is a perfectly valid excuse for everything. Second, napping makes you happy. Science probably says something about brain chemicals and rest and health benefits, but I just know it makes me feel much nicer to be around. If I don’t nap I get grumpy and I start thinking everything is terrible. If I DO nap I think “Everything is fine! The world is good! I like everyone!” It is like free medicine that you don’t have to pay for and it tastes like nothing. Of course there is a skill to it. You have to find the right place somewhere quiet and comfortable, but not TOO comfortable or you will sleep for four hours. You have to set an alarm so you don’t wake up when it is dark outside and panic that you have missed your whole life. And you have to ignore the voice in your head that says “You should be doing something useful instead of lying here.” That voice is lying. Lying here IS useful. It is the most useful thing you can possibly do.

So the answer is simple: why take a power nap? Because being tired is rubbish. Because being awake and useless is worse than being asleep and happy. Because twenty minutes of doing absolutely nothing will make you better at everything you have to do later. And mostly because it feels amazing. In a world that never stops rushing and never lets you rest, the power nap is your little secret place of peace. It is your tiny holiday that you can take every single day without packing a suitcase or telling anyone where you are going. 

So go ahead. Close your eyes. Rest your brain. Recharge your batteries. And if anyone asks what you are doing just tell them you are doing very important maintenance work on your personality.