The book is called Power Sleep and it is by the sleep researcher who coined the term “power nap”:
The author includes the following two diagrams on pages 48 & 49 that have thus far been my favorite insight from the book:
The second figure illustrates that at all times during the day we have two forces working on us: a “wakefulness” force and a “desire to sleep” force. In other words, at any point during the daytime if you lay down on your couch you could probably fall asleep.
The reason I thought the graph was so interesting is the fact that it shows a significant mid-afternoon dip in wakefulness. I thought I uniquely suffered from this condition – and suffer I do. Turns out it is common in our species.
You could basically set a clock by my profound desire to take a nap at exactly 3:00 PM. I am more tired at 3:00 PM than at any other time of day. I wish I could relocate my mid-afternoon tiredness to 10:30 PM.
Nature wants us to take a siesta!
7 comments:
I enjoyed your entry. I think the siesta is fabulous. I have made the mistake of trying to use a 44 oz. Diet Coke from Sonic (extra ice and lime juice) to combat the "drop", but found that it only postpones it and makes it worse when it appears a few hours later.
Richard, in Figure 4.2 it clearly indicates that those collar tabs we use in our dress shirts is the main cause of drowsiness in the mid-afternoon.....at least thats what I gather.
You mean all those free collar stays from the dry cleaners are really a disingenuous ploy to make us fall asleep on the couch and wrinkle our freshly pressed clothes?
That's diabolical!
Damn it Richard Im a doctor not a scientist!
Oh, mercy--where does one get that chair?? The napping chair?
I wonder how much this changes with age? Only i'm 18 and tend to have a dip at about 4:00. It does seem that adolescent body clocks are shifted towards the evening generally.
I use coffee.
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