Blue View - An Ode to Naps

By the time I was in high school, I’d found lots of ways to earn money… mowing lawns, paper routes, and even a small catering business (selling cold pop from my wagon to the workers building a new nearby mall), but my first real job was at a Dairy Queen. The owner, Sam, worked harder than anyone I knew. His day started at 4 AM, when he’d drive to the local Dairy Queen supplier to pick up a few 10 gallon, 88 pound cans filled with soft serve mix, plus whatever supplies his two stores would need for the day. After unloading everything, he’d spend a couple hours cleaning and sanitizing the machines, working on the books, etc., until opening time at 10 AM. He’d work to closing at 10 or 11, count the cash, make a bank deposit, then get home around midnight… before repeating the process the next day. One part of his day that was sacrosanct, however, was his afternoon nap. From 2 to 2:30 each afternoon, he’d go back to his desk, put his head down, and snooze, with strict instructions to wake him in half an hour. This, he said, was what got him by on four hours of sleep each night for months at a time.

Later, when Marcie and I were working long hours running our own business, there never seemed to be enough hours in the day to get everything done, and taking an afternoon nap was never a possibility. It just seemed too decadent a luxury to waste precious time on.

Now that we’re retired, however, I’ve come to the conclusion that naps are highly underrated. Short naps, power naps, cat naps… I love them all. The Spanish have the right idea with their afternoon siesta. I don’t know why, in our culture, we reserve naps for little kids who don’t appreciate them nearly as much as adults do.

After we’ve been biking or hiking for several hours, we find that a short afternoon nap refreshes and rejuvenates us. Our current routine is to start biking reasonably early in the morning, then return to Blanche by early afternoon. We clean up a bit, then climb into the van and take a short snooze. When we get up, our legs aren’t quite so rubbery and our butts aren’t quite so sore, and we’re re-energized. When we’re doing long treks, we’ll often set up camp by mid-afternoon, or maybe just put a tarp down in a shady, secluded spot and rest for a half hour. It makes an amazing difference.

In addition to being enjoyable and refreshing, there’s scientific evidence indicating that naps can make you more alert, reduce stress, boost memory, and improve work performance. A 10 to 30 minute nap each day can also reduce blood pressure and improve your immune system. In fact, I couldn’t find a single downside to taking a daily nap.

While I think I’m getting quite accomplished at napping, the ultimate napper was our ship’s cat, Jelly. She could nap anywhere, anytime. No guilt, no concern for shirking her chores, no matter how bad the seas. I hope to come back in my next life as a well-cared for cat.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, all this typing has made me sleepy.

See you next week…