Posted on the Mental Floss Blog:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/21376
Birds do it, bees do it (we think), even educated monkeys do it. So let’s do it, people. Let’s fall asleep. (The musical portion of this blog is over; thanks for indulging.)
But seriously: we’ve talked about the whys of taking naps on the blog before — they improve mood, creativity, memory function, heart health, and so much else — but never, to my knowledge, have we discussed how to take a nap. In fact, whenever we write about naps, we always get a few comments from people claiming they’re unable to nap during the day; they just can’t fall asleep, or when they do nap they wake up groggy and unable to work. In that case, read on, my sleepy friends.
1.The first thing you should know is, feeling sleepy in the afternoon is normal. It doesn’t mean you had a big lunch, or that you’re depressed, or you’re not getting enough exercise. That’s just how animals’ cycles work — every 24 hours, we have two periods of intense sleepiness. One is typically in the wee hours of the night, from about 2am to 4am, and the other is around 10 hours later, between 1pm and 3pm. If you’re a night owl and wake up later in the morning, that afternoon sleepiness may come later; if you’re an early bird, it may come earlier. But it happens to everyone; we’re physiologically hardwired to nap.
2.Naps provide different benefits depending on how long they are. A short nap of even 20 minutes will enhance alertness and concentration, mood and coordination. A nap of 90 minutes will get you into slow wave and REM sleep, which enhances creativity. If you sleep deeply and uninterruptedly the whole time, you’ll go through a full 90-minute sleep cycle, and recoup sleep you might not have gotten the night before (we’ve all heard it a million times, but most of us don’t get enough sleep at night).
3.Try not to sleep longer than 45 minutes but less than 90 minutes; then you’ll wake up in the middle of a slow-wave cycle, and be groggy. I used to hate taking naps during the day for just this reason — I would always wake up in a fog. My problem was I hadn’t yet perfected the art of the 20-minute catnap.
4.Find a nice dark place where you can lie down. It takes about 50% longer to fall asleep sitting up (this is why red eye flights usually live up to their name), and be armed with a blanket; you don’t want to be chilly. You also don’t want to be too warm, which can lead to oversleeping. (There was a kind of urban legend circulating when I was a kid: don’t fall asleep in the sun, or you’ll never wake up. Not true — but you might wake up three hours later with a ripe sunburn.)
5.White noise can help you fall asleep, especially during the day when construction crews, garbage trucks, barking dogs and other noisy awake-world things can conspire to destroy your nap. Keep a fan on, or turn on a nearby faucet for a pleasing rushing-river sound. (Just kidding about that last one.)
6.Don’t nap too close to bedtime, or you might not be able to fall asleep later. Remember, your inbuilt sleepy window is sometime in the early to mid-afternoon — try to nap then.
7.Quit that silly job where they don’t let you take naps during the day.
Showing posts with label sleep. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sleep. Show all posts
Friday, January 2, 2009
I Need A Nap!
Copied from Siesta Awareness
http://www.siestaawareness.org/
Do you ever feel a lull in energy levels after lunch?
Do you sometimes wish you could just have a little siesta to refresh you?
The post-lunch nap has not yet been adopted in Britain and is often considered a sign of weakness however the ‘Power Nap’ as it is commonly called, offers real benefits to health, productivity and wellbeing.
Research shows that we have a strong biological tendency to become tired in the early afternoon. A short 10-20 minute nap in the middle of a working day can increase productivity by over 30% and alertness by 100% as well as improve memory and concentration, according to NASA. Recent research shows that we can also reduce stress and the risk of heart disease by 34%. Sleep deprivation has been shown to make weight loss more difficult as well as cause accidents at work and on the road. Even 5 minutes can be beneficial!
Benefits of the 10-20 minute nap:
- More energy
- Improve productivity by over 30%
- Improve alertness by up to 100%
- Reduce stress and the risk of heart disease by 34%
- Better negotiation and communication
- Reduce risk of accidents at work and on the road
- Happiness and wellbeing
Also, check out the song, I Need A Nap written by Sandra Boyton and sung by Weird Al and Kate Winslet. Really funny!
http://www.siestaawareness.org/
Do you ever feel a lull in energy levels after lunch?
Do you sometimes wish you could just have a little siesta to refresh you?
The post-lunch nap has not yet been adopted in Britain and is often considered a sign of weakness however the ‘Power Nap’ as it is commonly called, offers real benefits to health, productivity and wellbeing.
Research shows that we have a strong biological tendency to become tired in the early afternoon. A short 10-20 minute nap in the middle of a working day can increase productivity by over 30% and alertness by 100% as well as improve memory and concentration, according to NASA. Recent research shows that we can also reduce stress and the risk of heart disease by 34%. Sleep deprivation has been shown to make weight loss more difficult as well as cause accidents at work and on the road. Even 5 minutes can be beneficial!
Benefits of the 10-20 minute nap:
- More energy
- Improve productivity by over 30%
- Improve alertness by up to 100%
- Reduce stress and the risk of heart disease by 34%
- Better negotiation and communication
- Reduce risk of accidents at work and on the road
- Happiness and wellbeing
Also, check out the song, I Need A Nap written by Sandra Boyton and sung by Weird Al and Kate Winslet. Really funny!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Important Thanksgiving Facts
Found in Mental Floss here:
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/20151
by Matt Soniak - November 27, 2008 - 10:00 AM
Why does turkey make me tired?
Most people blame tryptophan, but that’s not really the main culprit. In case you’re wondering, tryptophan is an amino acid that the body uses in the processes of making vitamin B3 and serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate sleep. It can’t be produced by our bodies, so we need to get it through our diet. From which foods, exactly? Turkey, of course, but also other meats, chocolate, bananas, mangoes, dairy products, eggs, chickpeas, peanuts and a slew of other foods. Some of these, like cheddar cheese, have more tryptophan per gram than turkey. Tryptophan doesn’t have much of an impact unless it’s taken on an empty stomach and in an amount larger than what we’re getting from our drumstick. So why does turkey get the rap as a one-way ticket to a nap?
The urge to snooze is more the fault of the average Thanksgiving meal and all the food and booze that go with it. Here are a few things that play into the nap factor:
Fats – That turkey skin is delicious, but fats take a lot of energy to digest, so the body redirects blood to the digestive system. Reduced blood flow in the rest of the body means reduced energy.
Alcohol – What Homer Simpson called the cause of—and solution to—all of life’s problems is also a central nervous system depressant.
Overeating – Same deal as fats. It takes a lot of energy to digest a big feast (the average Thanksgiving meal contains 3,000 calories and 229 grams of fat), so blood is sent to the digestive process system, leaving the brain a little tired.
Why is dark meat dark and white meat white?
Among the many things inside our bodies (guts, black stuff, about fifty Slim Jims), there are two types of muscle fiber: fast twitch and slow twitch. Fast twitch muscle fibers, which contract quickly but consume a lot of energy and fatigue quickly, are used for rapid movements like jumping and sprinting. Slow twitch muscle fibers contract slowly but don’t use much energy, and can contract for a long time before fatiguing; they’re used for endurance activities.
Most of our muscles are made up of a mix of both slow and fast twitch fibers and, overall, the average human body has about a 50/50 mix of the two. Some people may have a higher percentage of one type or the other from developing those fibers through training and exercise. Some Olympic sprinters have as much as 80% fast twitch fibers and long-distance runners have the same percentage of slow-twitch. Ongoing research says that training can only alter the ratio so much, though. It seems that there’s a genetic predisposition for having more of one fiber than another. But let’s talk turkey.
The meat we eat from a turkey is turkey muscle, and turkeys have fast and slow twitch muscle fibers, too—though not in the same even mixing we see in humans. The difference between dark meat and white meat is due to the type of muscle fiber that’s predominant in the meat and the way that fiber makes energy.
The muscles in turkey legs – the dark meat from the thighs and drumsticks – are mainly made up of slow twitch fibers, which get their energy from oxygen stored in the fibers by a protein called myoglobin. Myoglobin is a richly pigmented protein, and the more myoglobin there is in the fibers, the darker the meat.
Turkey wings and breasts, the white meat, are mostly made up of fast twitch muscle fibers, which get their energy from glycogen, a polysaccharide of glucose that’s stored in the muscle fibers and doesn’t have much pigment.
If you’ve eaten duck breast, you know that it’s hardly what you’d call white meat. That’s because unlike flightless turkeys, ducks take to the air a lot and have more slow twitch fibers, and more myoglobin, in their wings and breasts.
Thanksgiving by the Numbers
Before we all find a comfortable spot on the couch to curl up in, let’s crunch some big numbers that go along with the big meal.
271 million -
The estimated number of turkeys raised in the US this year. Of those, 49 million were raised in Minnesota, the leading turkey production state for the year.
$4.3 billion –
The estimated amount that farmers will make from the sale of all those turkeys.
689 million pounds –
The estimate for US cranberry production this year. Wisconsin comes out on top with 385 million pounds produced.
1.8 billion pounds –
The total weight of sweet potatoes produced by the major sweet potato producing states last year.
1.1 billion pounds –
The total weight of the pumpkins produced last year by major pumpkin-producing states, with a value of $117 million. Illinois wiped the floor with the rest of the states’ pumpkin patches and led the country with 542 million pounds worth of gourd.
177 million pounds –
The tart cherry production for 2008, if pumpkin pie isn’t your thing.
13.3 pounds –
The amount of turkey that the average American ate in 2006.
(If you’re a numbers geek, these figures came from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, the USDA Economic Research Service and the Census Bureau, all of which have plenty of other fun stats to play with.)
http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/20151
by Matt Soniak - November 27, 2008 - 10:00 AM
Why does turkey make me tired?
Most people blame tryptophan, but that’s not really the main culprit. In case you’re wondering, tryptophan is an amino acid that the body uses in the processes of making vitamin B3 and serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate sleep. It can’t be produced by our bodies, so we need to get it through our diet. From which foods, exactly? Turkey, of course, but also other meats, chocolate, bananas, mangoes, dairy products, eggs, chickpeas, peanuts and a slew of other foods. Some of these, like cheddar cheese, have more tryptophan per gram than turkey. Tryptophan doesn’t have much of an impact unless it’s taken on an empty stomach and in an amount larger than what we’re getting from our drumstick. So why does turkey get the rap as a one-way ticket to a nap?
The urge to snooze is more the fault of the average Thanksgiving meal and all the food and booze that go with it. Here are a few things that play into the nap factor:
Fats – That turkey skin is delicious, but fats take a lot of energy to digest, so the body redirects blood to the digestive system. Reduced blood flow in the rest of the body means reduced energy.
Alcohol – What Homer Simpson called the cause of—and solution to—all of life’s problems is also a central nervous system depressant.
Overeating – Same deal as fats. It takes a lot of energy to digest a big feast (the average Thanksgiving meal contains 3,000 calories and 229 grams of fat), so blood is sent to the digestive process system, leaving the brain a little tired.
Why is dark meat dark and white meat white?
Among the many things inside our bodies (guts, black stuff, about fifty Slim Jims), there are two types of muscle fiber: fast twitch and slow twitch. Fast twitch muscle fibers, which contract quickly but consume a lot of energy and fatigue quickly, are used for rapid movements like jumping and sprinting. Slow twitch muscle fibers contract slowly but don’t use much energy, and can contract for a long time before fatiguing; they’re used for endurance activities.
Most of our muscles are made up of a mix of both slow and fast twitch fibers and, overall, the average human body has about a 50/50 mix of the two. Some people may have a higher percentage of one type or the other from developing those fibers through training and exercise. Some Olympic sprinters have as much as 80% fast twitch fibers and long-distance runners have the same percentage of slow-twitch. Ongoing research says that training can only alter the ratio so much, though. It seems that there’s a genetic predisposition for having more of one fiber than another. But let’s talk turkey.
The meat we eat from a turkey is turkey muscle, and turkeys have fast and slow twitch muscle fibers, too—though not in the same even mixing we see in humans. The difference between dark meat and white meat is due to the type of muscle fiber that’s predominant in the meat and the way that fiber makes energy.
The muscles in turkey legs – the dark meat from the thighs and drumsticks – are mainly made up of slow twitch fibers, which get their energy from oxygen stored in the fibers by a protein called myoglobin. Myoglobin is a richly pigmented protein, and the more myoglobin there is in the fibers, the darker the meat.
Turkey wings and breasts, the white meat, are mostly made up of fast twitch muscle fibers, which get their energy from glycogen, a polysaccharide of glucose that’s stored in the muscle fibers and doesn’t have much pigment.
If you’ve eaten duck breast, you know that it’s hardly what you’d call white meat. That’s because unlike flightless turkeys, ducks take to the air a lot and have more slow twitch fibers, and more myoglobin, in their wings and breasts.
Thanksgiving by the Numbers
Before we all find a comfortable spot on the couch to curl up in, let’s crunch some big numbers that go along with the big meal.
271 million -
The estimated number of turkeys raised in the US this year. Of those, 49 million were raised in Minnesota, the leading turkey production state for the year.
$4.3 billion –
The estimated amount that farmers will make from the sale of all those turkeys.
689 million pounds –
The estimate for US cranberry production this year. Wisconsin comes out on top with 385 million pounds produced.
1.8 billion pounds –
The total weight of sweet potatoes produced by the major sweet potato producing states last year.
1.1 billion pounds –
The total weight of the pumpkins produced last year by major pumpkin-producing states, with a value of $117 million. Illinois wiped the floor with the rest of the states’ pumpkin patches and led the country with 542 million pounds worth of gourd.
177 million pounds –
The tart cherry production for 2008, if pumpkin pie isn’t your thing.
13.3 pounds –
The amount of turkey that the average American ate in 2006.
(If you’re a numbers geek, these figures came from the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, the USDA Economic Research Service and the Census Bureau, all of which have plenty of other fun stats to play with.)
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