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Nappers sleep, perchance to dream--or at least recharge

By Carl Heintze

Let's have a round of applause for the afternoon nap. But not a round that's too loud. It might wake the nappers.

I realize afternoon naps are not for everyone, even though I think they ought to be.

Some people can't nap with ease. Others don't nap at all but plunge heedless on into the afternoon, headed for supper and then bed.

Afternoon nappers, though, find a quiet space, put their heads back and are soon asleep. Or at least the real afternoon nappers are, anyway.

Take, for instance, my son-in-law. He is a consummate afternoon napper. No matter what's going on in the house, after lunch he can sit in his reclining chair, close his eyes and in a moment be lost to everyone and everything about him. And he stays asleep for perhaps 15 or 20 minutes.

That's all the time he needs. He awakes refreshed and ready to go on with the day.

I can accomplish this sometimes, but I must confess I'm not as adroit at napping as he is.

I like to take my nap--about the same length of time as his--right after lunch when my food is digesting. Usually, if I don't wake naturally, the mailman rouses me by slipping the mail through the mail slot.

That's enough noise, but not enough to rouse my son-in-law. He can pretty much sleep through anything. From this, although I have not made a diligent study of the matter, I suppose there are light and deep nappers, frequent and infrequent nappers and nappers who nap daily, some who nap weekly and some who only manage to drift off once a month or so.

I've also never made a survey to try to find out how many afternoon nappers dream and how many sleep but have no remembrance of anything in any world but this one.

I've heard that dreams occur only in the last few moments of sleep, but I'm not sure if this applies to nappers. It well may be that naps don't usually involve deep sleep and hence are not conducive to extensive dreaming.

Most people don't nap to dream anyway. I think they nap, even as they sleep, in order to let their bodies store up energy for the rest of the day or night. They're a bit short by noontime. Hence the need to settle down in a comfortable chair in a comfortable position and wait for sleep to come.

And there is nothing so delicious as the sleep that makes up most of a nap. One eases slowly into a state almost impossible to describe. It's almost like floating on some slow, billowy sea. The world rises and falls, as it were, with the inhaling and exhaling of the breath.

Consciousness, like the tide, ebbs, drawing out onto the great undulating plane of time, and before you know it, you've drifted off on its waves, borne slowly into the immensity of what seems like eternity.

That's the best I can do to describe the afternoon nap, a system that's a part of the culture in many tropical countries where the siesta is an institution and where the lunch hour is not one but a couple of hours.

In the fast world of North America, not many gainfully employed people nap. A lot of American workers don't even take time for lunch or have lunch at their desks and they certainly don't bother with afternoon naps.

I think that's a shame. Somehow we ought to make the afternoon nap more a part of our culture; we ought to make it more institutional. I can think of only a couple of working males who took time out for a nap in the middle of the day.

Whether it is significant or not, they were both doctors. After lunch they each signaled to their office persons, closed the doors to their offices, settled back in their office chairs and napped for about a half hour. They never had any trouble waking up or going with the rest of their patient load. And I think they were the better for it.

What I don't know is whether they recommended afternoon naps to their patients. One would hope so. Sort of, "physician heal thyself," right?

That would hold with my contention that an afternoon nap, even a short one, is of significant benefit to your health. As a patient, try it on your own doctor sometime. Ask him if he doesn't recommend a nap after lunch--of short duration, of course.

And tell him I sent you.

Meantime, it's almost 1 o'clock and time for a little shuteye. I'll talk to you again in about 20 minutes.

Carl Heintze is a regular columnist for the Saratoga News. His column appears every other week in this newspaper.