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Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone

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Re: Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone

#131

Post by swombat »

ConnorG wrote: post #130
pqs wrote: post #97

This is a well known practise in Spain. I com from Spain and I have always seen my family (parents and grandparents) drinking coffee after lunch and, then, doing a nap on the couch. Usually, we sit on the couch, take the coffee together and then every person takes a newspaper or magazine and after a few minutes of pseudo-reading everybody is sleeping or in a state of deep relaxation. We sleep for 20 minutes. That's a…

I was an avid napper back at college and thoroughly employed the coffee nap technique. Now I'm in the workforce, but my body is still yearning for naps at work. I find myself drifting off here and there, but never fully commit. I'm afraid to take a full nap at work due to how it may look. Do you find yourself being judged for taking naps at work?

You can take surprisingly good naps sitting in a toilet cubicle - I did so for many months at Accenture and never had a problem. It energised me and enabled me to do better work the rest of the time.

Re: Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone

#132

Post by jmagoon »

Sammi wrote: post #105
themodelplumber wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, it takes practice. I can't let my mind wander though. If I want to take a nap in the middle of the day I have to consciously visualize something. The visualization that has worked best for me over the last year has been sitting in my childhood home, assembling the tail section of a scale model Su-24. The end product looks a lot like this one: http://paperwings.orgfree.com/su24/index.htm (except I never finis…

Well there is a right and wrong way to let you mind wander. The right way is what is taught in Mindfulness meditation. It requires hard training, and I'm not very good at it (yet I hope). The "trick" is to let you mind wander without intentionally thinking about anything, but just letting thoughts float on by without getting attached to any one of them. Just notice all the different things your mind is bringing up, a…

Just a note: that inner voice is also a thought. A strongly habituated one, certainly, but still just a thought. You don't need to stop 'talking', just take a step back, so to speak, and watch that voice and it will gradually dissolve on its own (over time, it will get less demanding on your attention).

Re: Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone

#134

Post by ajani »

jclos wrote: post #112
tambourine_man wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mildly interesting podcasts and audiobooks help me a lot. Too interesting and you get wired. Too dull and your mind begins to wonder. Some work so well that it takes me several runs to listen completely.

What helps me a lot is listening to audiobooks I have already listened to. I find for example the Harry Potter audiobooks narrated by Stephen Fry comforting and relaxing.

I do the same thing - re-listen audiobooks. My favorites are Richard Dawkins and Stephen Fry.

Re: Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone

#135

Post by mchaver »

chii wrote: post #126
aeire wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hmm.. i believe this is pretty the same in Greece, at least during weekends, holidays and work-free days. In every lunch-gathering with close relatives, or close friends, at least one or two person take a short nap on the couch after the lunch, while the rest are having a relaxed and low voice chat. Usually the persons who fall asleep are males.

wow, how does anyone get anything done in that country! Compare it to the asian countries that work 16 hour days....

Napping is quite common in China and Taiwan at the work place and at school. People are overworked though.

Re: Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone

#136

Post by ademarre »

ConnorG wrote: post #130
pqs wrote: post #97

This is a well known practise in Spain. I com from Spain and I have always seen my family (parents and grandparents) drinking coffee after lunch and, then, doing a nap on the couch. Usually, we sit on the couch, take the coffee together and then every person takes a newspaper or magazine and after a few minutes of pseudo-reading everybody is sleeping or in a state of deep relaxation. We sleep for 20 minutes. That's a…

I was an avid napper back at college and thoroughly employed the coffee nap technique. Now I'm in the workforce, but my body is still yearning for naps at work. I find myself drifting off here and there, but never fully commit. I'm afraid to take a full nap at work due to how it may look. Do you find yourself being judged for taking naps at work?

It's a shame that napping is so often frowned upon in hard-working–America culture. It seems to me a rather ignorant tradition. We look everywhere for ways to boost office productivity, yet napping remains an anathema.

Re: Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone

#137

Post by vlunkr »

electromagnetic wrote: post #41
ArcticCelt wrote: post #39

I wish I was able to take naps. Do people can really fall asleep on command just like that when they have some spare minutes in their day? Shit, even when I am sleep deprived, I can barely fall asleep in my own bed, sometimes it literally take me hours. When I manage to take a nap it's usually involuntary by falling asleep in front of the TV.

Ditto this. My wife can nap no problem. I might nap every couple months, and its basically a disrupted sleep and not a nap. I wake up feeling terrible; groggy, mild headache, irritable. I'd have been better off not napping as it inevitably comes when I've got so much to do and no energy and that "if I have a quick nap I'll feel refreshed and be ready to work!" Nope!

I'm in the exact same situation. If I nap for more than ten minutes I feel awful. I assume my body doesn't know how to deal with naps since I rarely take one.

Re: Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone

#138

Post by Raphmedia »

ConnorG wrote: post #130
pqs wrote: post #97

This is a well known practise in Spain. I com from Spain and I have always seen my family (parents and grandparents) drinking coffee after lunch and, then, doing a nap on the couch. Usually, we sit on the couch, take the coffee together and then every person takes a newspaper or magazine and after a few minutes of pseudo-reading everybody is sleeping or in a state of deep relaxation. We sleep for 20 minutes. That's a…

I was an avid napper back at college and thoroughly employed the coffee nap technique. Now I'm in the workforce, but my body is still yearning for naps at work. I find myself drifting off here and there, but never fully commit. I'm afraid to take a full nap at work due to how it may look. Do you find yourself being judged for taking naps at work?

Do you have a car? Go in your car!

Don't have a car? Go in a park!

Generally, you can take a nap fine in the day. Bring a book and sleep with the book on your chest. Nobody is going to disturb someone that fell asleep reading a book.

Re: Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone

#139

Post by DaniFong »

clarry wrote: post #102
DaniFong wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read this carefully: I used to think this way as well. This thinking lead me to the exact wrong strategy for naps. There are many stages of sleep; stage 1 through 4, and REM sleep. These, it is hypothesized, have distinct physiological functions. Most importantly for this discussion, waking up out of each have very different effects. Waking from stage 1 sleep makes you feel immediately refreshed, and people perform b…

I think I know what it feels like to actually sleep for 20-25 minutes. Yes, it is refreshing. I also know what it is to try sleep (and fail) for the same amount of time. I don't find it refreshing, it just pisses me off. Unfortunately this is very common for me. It depends on the exact circumstances, but saying that it usually takes a minimum of fifteen to twenty minutes to actually fall asleep might actually be real…

That could definitely be true, but what I found was to seek a 'restful' state of physiology was much more helpful than to seek the loss of consciousness I had previously associated with sleep.

Insomnia and other things are very real, but in this case the problem was with what I felt was a good rest.

Re: Coffee naps are better than coffee or naps alone

#140

Post by ihaveajob »

bigtunacan wrote: post #119
click170 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could try not watching TV, using a laptop, or reading in bed. For me, when I stopped watching TV and doing things on my laptop from my bed, I very quickly noticed an improvement in how quickly I fell asleep. Another big one is exercise. I notice that when I exercise I have a much easier time falling asleep than on days that I don't, I now try to exercise every day. I also got older over the past few years, which…

This. A bed should serve for only two purposes; sleeping and we all know the other. Watching TV, laptops, reading, etc... do not train your brain that the bed is for sleeping. Now I lay in bed for a nap and I will typically zonk out in a couple of minutes.

I find that reading fiction in bed is a great way to fall asleep. Nothing technical or business related, though, that's a guarantee of a short and poor sleep.
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