The Art of Napping

I love to take naps.

I've been a nap-taker since my early twenties....always on the weekends, and since about my late 30's, I sometimes take a nap at work during the week. I have a couch in my office and I'll tell my assistant to keep people away for 15 to 20 minutes so I can grab some shut-eye - usually in the mid-afternoon. When I was crazy-tired from sleep apnea I was always taking a nap in my office but never felt refreshed afterward. Now that I have my sleep problem tackled, I usually take a quick cat-nap two, maybe three times a week now. 15 minutes tops. I wake up refreshed and ready to grind through the rest of the afternoon.

And weekend naps? Always good unless the phone rings. Usually well intended church folks call....and call....and call......it's why I just answer my cell phone and I usually turn that off so I can snooze.

Sunday naps are also better than Saturday naps, since Saturday means trips to Lowe's, Star Nursery, Golf Galaxy....harder to slow down on Saturday. It's a free day, and I typically don't turn things off until late in the afternoon. Sunday? Other than church, I do nothing but rest. I am a world-class "rester."

Vacation naps? The very best. I have this down.

Janae and I aren't the type of vacationers who go on bus tours with dozens of other people from the crack of dawn to sundown visiting dozens of sites. Nah. We may take a cab or have a driver take us to someplace cool, then come right back to the pool/beach/hotel.

A typical vacation day means sleeping in, rolling out to the beach/pool around 11am. Ordering some lunch around 1pm, going for a swim in the ocean (after waiting 1/2 hour) and plowing through a few hundred pages of a novel. I return to the room between 4 and 4:30, shower, put the fluffy robe on, lotion up, and fall asleep for at least an hour. Then it's time for dinner. And I often don't mind just grabbing some room service, watching a movie, reading some more and the goin BACK to sleep.

This is one reason why I'm not going to Australia with Janae & Company. Janae is going with a girlfriend and her daughter along with a group of rebel supporters and the rebel basketball team. UNLV is playing 3 or 4 exhibition games down under and there are tours planned, and alot of movement from one city to the next. Not my style. I unpack once, and that's it. If anything, I am a creature of habit. Cruises are okay since the ship moves at night and eliminates the need to pack and unpack to see different cities. The last cruise we did was Alaska and that was outstanding - better than I could have ever imagined. The Panama Canal was the best though - going through the lock system with a 1000 foot long ship was pretty cool.

I hope that everyone takes time to make time for yourself....to meditate, nap, turn off the phone/blackberry...to turn off the world, even if it's just for 10 or 15 minutes a day. You will feel better. Trust me.