Travels with Grumpus

The modern world killed off the nap, says Kurt Klein.  “I love to nap,” he begins, thereby capturing my heart immediately.

A good nap is one of life’s great pleasures, and the ability to nap is the sign of a well-balanced life. When we nap we snatch back control of our day from a mechanized, clock-driven society. We set aside the urgency imposed on us by the external world and get in touch with an internal rhythm that is millions of years old…

There’s no shortage of important historical nappers, many of them men of industry and action. Napoleon Bonaparte, John D. Rockefeller, Thomas Edison, and Winston Churchill were nappers in the heroic vein…

As a species, we seem designed to nap. Sleep researchers have long known that our natural circadian rhythms show two distinct dips in energy and alertness. The major dip starts in the late evening, helping us get ready for a good night’s sleep.  But there’s another significant dip in the early afternoon that, in a saner world, would have us all dropping off.

Grumpus sweetly sent me this article which I read after my afternoon nap and before my evening one.