Should we nap often? Take after my dog, Sparky. He likes to sleep whenever he can.
After the strokes, I would nap for at least 6 – 9 months. I was catnapping! I felt fatigued, and I slept.
Famous people who believed in naps are:
Aristotle believed in the power of hypnagogic napping – the state between asleep and waking for inspiration and genius.
Salvadore Dali believed that one of the crucial ideas to his becoming a great painter was “slumber with a key.”
This expression implies that he did an afternoon nap intended to last no longer than one second. He would sit in an armchair with a large key in his hand. He held it over a metal plate. He’d drop the key when he would drift into sleep, and the sound would wake him up.
Winston Churchill believed it helped him get twice as much done each day.
Albert Einstein practiced micro-napping or hypnagogic napping, which meant he never allowed himself to drift into a deep sleep. The same procedure that Dali used.
Leonardo Da Vinci replaced natural sleep with 15-minute naps every four hours.
Da Vinci sleep schedule is called polyphasic sleep. This way of sleeping is more similar to the resting habits of animals.
Animals often spread their naps of 10 minutes throughout the day, which sometimes adds to around two more hours of sleep.
I read a study in veterinary school that found that feral cats slept around 22 hours a day. Fascinating! Daily! To be an undomesticated cat!
We can learn from these people (and animals) and try to nap more!
