What's Your Take on Naps?

Yesterday my internship ended at 3. I drove home and diddled some before putting on my workout clothes and getting on the treadmill before dinner. I pushed myself to keep jogging for the full two miles, and made it to the last quarter mile before a side ache made me stop to walk. I only stopped once near the start to rescue the cat, who had gotten herself hooked again. She plays with the scratcher until one of her claws gets caught on the threads, and then she hangs there and cries for someone to come and save her.

I felt a bit wobbly as I showered and made pizza for dinner. It had been a long report-writing day and I don't think I had enough calories in me before I went burning them all up. I put on lots of spinach and drank water instead of cola, and watched a low-stress YouTube video of Britons playing Minecraft (Sweetie's on-again-off-again video game obsession). Then, before putting the dishes away, I lay down just for a bit to close my eyes.

And then it was 9pm, and I was on my side of the bed with the covers on and Sweetie beside me. He's such an enabler.

I hate naps. If I were leading the ideal lottery-winning existence, I would love naps. But when you have responsibilities the next day, they're nothing but trouble. For one thing, I always have to take an aspirin afterwards, and my tummy acts up for unknown reasons. For another, I couldn't go to sleep again until 3 in the morning, and had less than five hours before the cat alarm woke me up. No, she wasn't hooked and crying again; Sweetie came in to see if I was awake for my internship and I stumbled out for water, before sneaking back in and collapsing. Then the cat weaseled through the open door and hopped up to try and tunnel under the covers with me. So that was that.

Even though a nap + a night's sleep = a full 8 hours, it sure doesn't feel like it. I had to put in eye drops because they felt so heavy and dry. And I was half an hour late today because I wasn't moving as fluidly as usual. I had to exert all my mental energy to safely follow a truck full of tree limbs all the way to campus, and I barely processed what was playing on the car radio until I was parking and the host was saying something about a rapper going to federal prison for income tax evasion (who is Ja Rule, by the way?).

According to Glamour, Greek researchers say naps will lengthen your life, but it doesn't feel that way. Yes, I just linked to Glamour quoting Yahoo News! quoting no authoritative sources. That's how out of it I am.

Speaking of Glamour, some of the things they've been posting have really bugged me lately. A few days ago they advised ripping restaurants off by asking for a bunch of free lemon wedges and mixing them in your water with sugar packets for a "skinny lemonade...right at your table!" And on all of their positive body image posts, they put this girl:


The file name on their site is "happy_body_image_vg.jpg." Why? Does she look average to you? The only aspect of her gorgeous appearance that even hints at less-than-airbrushed-perfection is the unflattering top and slouching posture, probably meant to disguise the size 0 professional model's body underneath. Of course she has a "happy body image;" she could be a soap star!

Anyway, what do you think of naps? Life-lengthening or stress-inducing? Right now, as I'm preparing to buckle down and stare at the report I wrote yesterday and try to figure out what I was trying to say, it definitely feels like the latter.