In college, I minored in napping.
Or at least I could’ve. I was that good at it.
You see, the ritual was simple: pop out my prescription eye cups, lay down, and awake refreshed and ready to kick the rest of my day’s rump, one lecture at a time. And what happens now? Something quite different. Whether it’s forty minutes or an hour ‘n a half, the sound of my alarm attempting to summon me back to consciousness is abhorrent. (And, to an outsider, likely looks a lot like watching a corpse in a Romero film reanimate.)
Far from refreshing, I often wonder – what is it I’m doing wrong?
(Oh is *that* it? Where’s my Sweet Brown meme when you need her…)
Well, for one, I should be getting to bed earlier. Scratch that, I mean sleeping earlier. I get to bed just fine. It’s that blasted, evil, Eden-esque Apple brick (in all its light and spurious glory) that keeps me up till forever o’ clock in the morning lately. That said, even in my good-night’s-snooze days following college, I still was starting to have this problem. Less than restful naps decimating my days. So – aside from the early to bed suggestion – what else can we, the bad nappers of the world – do to mitigate our sleep situation?
Per Doc Oz, there’s this foolproof powernap plan we should all be trying.
And midway into watching this segment of his, something started to sound familiar. Mayhaps it’s was ‘cause it was kindofan amalgamation of all the good brain clearing tools and nap tips I’ve heard before. But there seemed to be another resonant theme going on here. Twenty minute naps… Sit upright… hold an object… Ah! Yes. That’s it. Homeboy’s describing (without actually saying it) a very effective meditation technique. And, whether you wanna call it that or a powernap, is up to you. The only thing that matters is that it jettisons the head webs clogging up your cognition so that you’re more alert when you finally come to. And here’s why:
The reason they suggest “twenty minutes” is because that’s the amount of time that’s just enough to infuse your cephalic battery with more juice – without you actually falling into deep, REM, groggy sleep. And that’s all you want. Something to just Lysol off your thought countertops so you can whip up a day’s worth of greatness again after. Coming outta deep sleep makes that far harder to accomplish. You just end up disoriented instead, and ultimately worse off.
And why sit upright in a chair?
Mostly to avoid the desire to drift off into that intensive resting we mentioned a moment ago. Well, that, and it’d also render the next element – the object holding part of the process – obsolete. You see, the object holding facet’s meant to supplant that jarring alarm to which I was referring at this article’s start. Is there anyone who doesn’t hate the sound of an alarm? I feel like the reply to that question’s pretty much a blanket no. And that’s where the object holding comes in two-fold. What you do, is ya grip an object to start with (Albert Einstein used to hold a ball – with his hand out, while laying on a couch). Oz, as you can see, uses a pencil. It doesn’t really matter what it is – so long as it’s either not a balloon or something you don’t want crashing on the ground in twenty minutes or so. ‘cause the idea’s that, once it falls from your paws, your mind’ll alert you of this. In that way, it serves as your alarm (versus some cacophonous tympanic invader jangling away). The second plus? That the pencil (or ball. Or small child.) will only fall just before you’re about to enter deep sleep phase. Which means you wake yourself up – when you’re meant to. Better than an actual alarm, if ya ask me. Come to think of it, in retrospect, that’s probably why my university years’ naps were so superior in quality. My tight rope wide and elevated bed served as the perfect Einsteinian obstacle drop alarm. No need to grip a pencil. The second I got comfortable, I’d just fall off onto the floor. It’d break the sleep cycle. And my arms. Hashtag: still better than the sound of an alarm.
Closing thoughts?
My phone keeps me from sleeping at night and it hatefully wakes me in the AM.
My phone clearly hates sleep. And me.
Welp, I know what I’ll be holding (out the window) for my next Oz style powernap.
