Confessions of a Napster

DEBORAH CROMBIE: And no, I don't mean I subscribe to the music file-sharing service. I mean I am a dedicated napper. Maybe there was a time, long ago (kindergarten?) when I didn't like to nap, but that is lost in the mists of memory.

My love affair with naps began with trips to Mexico in my elementary school and teenage years. Why, I wondered, didn't everyone have "siesta"? And even better, you got to stay up late! I spent the summer I was eighteen in Mexico City with friends of my parents. Oh, it was lovely. Breakfast about nine, with milky coffee, fruit, and those wonderful Mexican sweet breads, pan dulce. Then around two, there was La Comida, the big meal of the day, served formally in the dining room, with courses. And after that, of course, "La Siesta."  Afterwards everyone went back to work or school with renewed energy. Dinner was around nine in the evening. And then there were cappuccinos and much talk in the cafes of La Zona Rosa. (There is always much talk in Mexico!)

I think I knew even at eighteen that I had found my perfect body rhythm, and that has never changed--although it certainly went through adjustments in my child-raising, regular job years.

I have found, writing, that I do very well in the morning (assuming I've had enough sleep), but that once I eat lunch, even a very light snack, I hit what feels like a brick wall. My brain slows to a crawl. My eyelids droop. The computer screen blurs and my productivity drops to zero. There is nothing for it but a NAP.

It doesn't have to be a long nap. Twenty to thirty minutes will do it. Usually, I wake up full of ideas, ready for my afternoon cup of tea, and knowing just exactly what to write next. And then I'm on a roll until I have to quit to throw the tennis ball for Dax and fix dinner.

For years I felt guilty about this, my little nap secret.

But now I am vindicated!  Researchers are shouting the benefits of naps! They increase productivity, creativity, and improve memory. And did you know that your brain even cleans itself while you sleep, getting rid of accumulated "trash?"

So, REDS, are any of you nappers, secret or out-of-the-closet?

HALLIE EPHRON: Debs, sounds like we were separated at birth. I nap every day that I can. After lunch (YES!) some time around 1:30 to 2:30 I crash. And if I can shut down for even twenty or thirty minutes I'm ready to go again.

So my question: why do robo callers ALWAYS call when I'm about to... or have just fallen asleep?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: This is so funny..until maybe two years ago, I would NEVER have napped. I suppose that has something to do with being at a job where they would frown on it. But I never felt tired in the afternoon. And I still don't, on my days at Channel 7. But when I am on tour, and crazed, I try to snag twenty minutes and just close my eyes, sitting up on the hotel bed usually, and try to meditate out. I tell myself--"wake up in twenty minutes" and I always do. Then I get up and shake it out a bit. It really makes a difference. Just 20 minutes. I'm never quite sure I'm actually asleep, but suddenly the time is gone, and bing. I'm up.
 
I never snuggle down in the actual bed, though.  If I did--I'd be there for hours, and wake groggy and needing scrambled eggs.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: OH, my Lord, do I love napping. I mean, I assume I was just as squirmy and anti-nap when I was a kid as most of them are (sleeping, like wine and mushrooms, is a pleasure only shared by adults.) But when I was a permanently sleep-deprived stay at home mom with two under two, I learned to power nap. As soon as those little angels were down for the count, mommy hit the sheets.

I almost never nap during the week, unless I've really messed up my sleep the night before. For me, the best nap time is Sunday afternoon. We get home from church, have a bite to eat, I take off my skirt and pantyhose and climb into bed. No guilt about what I ought to be doing instead - it is the Day of Rest, after all. 

Three important factors for a good nap? 1.The bed must be made before you get in, so the sheets are nice and smooth and cool. 2. White noise: I put on the bathroom fan and shut the door. The pleasant whoosh whoosh drowns out the neighbor's lawnmower, my offspring, etc. 3. Pajamas! I change into them for the nap for extra comfort. Maybe I should get special nap-only pjs. And while I'm wishing, here's my dream nap setting: a made-in-Maine Penobscot Bay porch swing. Now that's luxury...   

So, readers, how about you? To nap, or not to nap, that is the question...

Shut Eye, Forty Winks, Dreamland, Slumber Party

HANK: I sit here, staring at the computer screen, my brain fuzzy and essentially sludge. What do I need to get back in the, um, well,I'm trying to think of a word that means: quick-witted, thoughtful, flexible, interested, capable, imaginative. But only one word comes to mind right now.


Tired.

I could really use some sleep.

When I give speeches to organizations and book groups, and they say--wow, how do you have a full-time job as a reporter and a full-time job as an author and then all these appearances and you have a husband, if course--how do you do that?

And I laugh, and I say, oh, sleep was the first to go! Who needs sleep?

I do. I do. I do.

There's not a moment of the day I'm not working. (Writing this counts, right?) And I go home at night, and work more and write more and then fix dinner and then have dinner and then work or read-for-work and then go to sleep about--12:30? And get up at 7, if I'm lucky, and then start over.

That's six and a half hours (isn't it? bad at math, too sleepy..), and most experts say, that's not enough. Duh. Although I do know some people can go on less. Supposedly Leonardo Da Vinci would sleep just 15 minutes of every four hours. Whoa. Sleeping AND math. Very Leonardo.

Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister, was famous for getting by on
only four hours a night. Thomas Edison slept 3-4 hours at night, regarding sleep as a waste of time.



And, surprise surprise, Martha Stewart says: “There’s not enough time in the day.” As a result, she alleges she needs no more than four hours’ sleep a night. (It must be the high thread count Egyptian cotton color-coordinated sheets.)

My waking dream? To have the prescribed-as-normal textbook eight hours sleep a night. Oh, I wonder how the bags under my eyes would fare if I did. I'd love to find out. I'd love to find out in a cool breezy room, with fluttering crisp white curtains and the fragrance of salt water and, yes, beautiful sheets and fluffy pillows.





Sigh. Oh, sorry, I yawned. How much sleep do you need?

ROSEMARY: More than I'm getting! On a regular basis I seem to get six hours, out by midnight and up by 6am, although when it's crunchtime I easily stay up until 3 or 4 until all or most of the things on my list are accomplished. (Then I drag my sorry butt around the next day.)

But the work is never finished. I was busy before I started writing - I did a lot more volunteering than I do now and for a time I was going to Africa once a year to check on the library. And my garden was in its early stages so I did a lot more planting. Some days I just take the day off - my husband laughs because all that means is that I'm working at something other than writing or promoting.

JAN: Those four-hour-a-night-sleep people have different DNA than the rest of us. Or maybe they are aliens sent to spy on us because that's just not human. Last week, I did a story for the Globe and talked to the pre-eminent sleep researcher in the country. He said you need one hour of sleep to process, sort, file and "deal with" every two hours you are awake. Sleep is the body's filtering and filing system and when you don't get it (unless you are an alien), you can't properly deal with your emotions and the weird little traumas of every day life.

This is just a long-winded defense where I call in a Harvard researcher to validate my absolute need for eight hours every single night. If I somehow get shorted one night, its NINE hours the next. I am a complete and total sleep WIMP.

HALLIE: I'm with you, Jan. Eight hours a night. MINIMUM. I'm so glad Harvard says that's a good thing.

I consider myself a champion sleeper. Usually I'm out within a minute or two of my head hitting the pillow. I sleep especially well with the baseball game on the TV. Or during that last fifteen minutes of Masterpiece Mystery. On the rare occasion when I can't sleep I get my husband to talk to me and that does the trick.

HANK: Oh, that's hilarious! We won't tell him...

HALLIE: And confession: I like to take a short nap mid-afternoon, too. Just twenty minutes out and I'm good to go. Yes, that's on top of my 8 hours.

Such a wimp.

ROBERTA: Hallie, I'm so envious of you falling to sleep like that. My hub is the same way--he's off to dreamland and I lie there thinking about a thousand things that should be done. Not good at sleeping through the night either...oh for those younger days when I was a champion sleeper too! And Deb, I'm not at all a night person. Not a 6 am girl either. John teases that my peak hours are 9 to 11 am. Could be:).

Hank, I've never noticed any bags--you always look better than the rest of us.

HANK: May I find your glasses for you? :-)

RHYS: I'm just getting over two years of real sleep problems--some nights with no sleep at all. It's bliss to be able to fall asleep right away, but I can only do it if I grab the window of opportunity which is between 9:30-10:30. If I stay up past that, or I'm watching a stimulating show on TV, I can be staring at the ceiling at three. And I do need my eight hours too. The problem is that I wake by seven however late I fall asleep.
And something else that's strange--I sleep really well away from home in hotels. If I wake at home I'm lying there writing the next chapter or remembering something I should have mailed. Away from home I sleep. Maybe I should be on the road all year.
Oh, and I love naps too, but they have to be less than ten minutes or I feel like a zombie.

DEBS: Oh, I'm so glad someone else confesses to naps! And that you are not all aliens who only need four hours sleep. I need eight, although I usually don't get quite that much. And then I need a nap mid-to-late afternoon, after which I write like a maniac and could keep going post midnight if I didn't have to do things like fix dinner and clean up . . .

I can't write when I'm tired. My brain just doesn't fire. But even after so many years of practical experience with this, I'm still amazed at the difference enough rest makes. I am also a night person, and the more I can accommodate my body clock, the better I do.

As for those bags under the eyes, Hank, I am SHOCKED, just SHOCKED by how much difference rest makes in the way I look as I get, um, more "mature." At least I don't have to be on TV when I've had a bad night :-)

ROSEMARY: I do think naps are wonderful - such a treat. And then you've got a whole new day!

HANK: Oh, gosh, I can't nap. When I do, I wake up and want scrambled eggs. No matter what time it is. It scrambles my brain, I guess.


So Reds, how much sleep do you need? Or, just as interesting, how much sleep do you get? Naps? Or no naps?

Are you a Martha Stewart or a, um, Hank? And--just thought of this--did you ever have slumber parties?

And hey, because it's Monday and why not--I have a signed copy of Lisa Scottoline's brand new SAVE ME to give away to one lucky commenter!