Somebody Needs a Nap

So I was watching the Today show last week and they had a story about a company that lets their employees take power naps during the day. It’s part of their schedule. Then Meredith was interviewing this doctor and he was talking about how sleep deprived we all are and that we are basically walking zombies. I thought this was pretty timely since I had been awake since about 4:30 am that morning for no good reason. Right then, a nap was sounding like a great idea. I think that George Costanza was on to something.

Productivity and the Power Nap

The doctor was saying that if people could power nap during the day, maybe 15 to 20 minutes, they would feel more refreshed, alert, productive, etc. This reminds me of one of my multi-tasking errands. I used to go to the tanning bed and sleep. I was never in there very long and the bed shutting off would wake me up and I would wake up tan. Nice!

Girl Maintenance

The more I think about it, the more issues I have with actually seeing it happen. What are you supposed to do about your make up? Sleeping in it is a bad idea. What about your clothes? Can you imagine going into some afternoon meeting with wrinkled clothes and bed head from your power nap? So what happens then? Corporate pajamas? Between changing clothes and removing and reapplying make up, that 15-minute power nap just became a lot longer.

Sleepless in? Where am I, anyway?

Any troubles I have sleeping are generally the first night in a hotel. There are new noises to deal with, lights coming from windows and under doors, different time zones, different bed, etc. You name it and I’ll have trouble sleeping the first night. One of the things I have to do is unplug the hair dryer. That may sound weird, but a lot of them have this weird orange power light that shines when they are plugged in. It never fails to remind me of the movie, Flatliners. Do you know what I mean? Julia Roberts keeps seeing her dead father in the bathroom and there is always this weird red-orange light that goes with it. Creepy. I don’t need to be reminded of dead people hanging out in my bathroom. Then there is the matter of the alarm clock. Generally, they are pretty reliable, but I always have to test them. I almost never rely on a wake up call; too much room for human error. By the second night, I’m so exhausted that nothing is going to keep me awake. I’m lucky to make it past dinner.

At home, I like to keep my room very tomb-like. It’s always dark and I don’t watch TV in there at night. I’ll watch it in the morning when I am getting ready or I may have it on while I am packing for a trip, but that’s it. I think there should be as few distractions in there as possible. I used to sleep with the radio on, but I can’t do it now. I almost never read in there either. I think if you condition yourself to thinking that your bedroom is for sleep and not for watching TV or catching up on work or surfing the Internet from your laptop, or anything else besides bed-related activities, then you should be fine. Obviously there are those times when your brain just won’t shut down, but if I can’t sleep, I’ll just get up and go into another room until I’m tired enough to sleep. Is that weird? I don’t know. It works for me.