Perfecting the Power Nap
Around midday, I need a break.
I wake up earlier than most people think is reasonable. Pre-Daylight Savings Time change, it was around 3:30 a.m. No alarm. I would wake naturally, have my coffee, and do my morning reading and writing. The “spring forward” threw off my natural rhythm a bit, but I’m slowly working my way back to my normal.
On the flip side, I am in bed by 8:30 p.m., at the absolute latest. I start to wind down much earlier than that.
The other effect is that by midday, I’m exhausted. I try to get a lot of intensive writing/focus work done in the morning. That point that many people reach around 3:30–4:00 in the afternoon of a traditional 9:00–5:00 workday? I hit that wall around noon.
But at noon, my day isn’t over. My days are a blend of work and home. The first half of the day includes chunks of time in geting my elementary school children out to the bus and picking up the 3-year-old from half-day preschool. So while I have been awake for quite some time, my day is far from over. I usually have some things to finish up in the afternoon.
Enter the Power Nap.
Power napping was something I tried for years, but never really got good at. I would lie down and end up sleeping for far too long. Or, I would have an afternoon meeting on my brain and…
