Hello, I’m Annie and I have a nap problem. I never want to leave my bed. My bed isn’t mobile like my favorite kids’ movies made me dream it would be, and one day I just missed it so much that I just tried one little nap. It feels good to let my secret out. I didn’t go back to my room yesterday because I forgot my textbook. No, the truth is I have been napping almost daily for the past couple months. I know society will mark me as a lazy weirdo trying to replicate the worst part of preschool in some attempt to hold on to my childhood, but I stand proudly behind my choice.
While I am all about regression, my reason for becoming a nap addict actually has nothing to do with the fact that I would gladly retake re-enroll in kindergarten, nor is it because I am a privileged princess. I nap because I need an extra recharge throughout the day. A little research showed me the magic of day sleeping. Here are five reasons why we should stop nap-shaming:
- Naps are Professional: In order to increase productivity and bring the world into the Jetsons-inspired gadget-filled future we all imagined the 21st century would be, Google has Nap Pods throughout their headquarters in Mountain View, California. While the pods sort of look like a human poké-ball work-in-progress, the glorified recliners are formatted for optimum privacy, posture, and blood circulation. For the easy payment of $12,985, you could nap in style in your very own pod!
- Naps encourage Creativity: If you’re praying for a burst of inspiration to finally top off that conclusion, hit the pillow, not the books. Thomas Edison–famous for being the namesake for the paradise of Edison, New Jersey (and some other things, too)–would power nap daily because he believed that sleep churned the mind’s most creative thoughts up to the surface. He would sometimes sleep sitting up, holding ball bearings above metal pie tins. When Edison relaxed enough to drift into heavenly nap land, the bearings would fall loudly, waking him up immediately so he could jot down his sleep-tinted thoughts.
- Naps make you Sexier: Don’t resist napping because you’re worried no one will think you’re sexy when you’re sporting bedhead look all day afterwards. Sex Researcher (AKA Professional TMI Investigator) Debby Herbenick says that sufficient sleep puts the spark back in a relationship faster than listening to all of JT’s 20/20, though that does work as well. Don’t be afraid to “slip into something more comfortable.” Pajamas are super arousing…at least when Tom Hiddleston and I wear them (see below).
- If you’re not sleeping enough, you will die: According to this article on WebMD which has to be true because the website itself has earned a degree, if you lack sufficient sleep, then you are a depressed, dumb, undersexed, wrinkly, fat lard of a human being with poor focus and judgment skills simply waiting for the day when heart disease will strike you down. If you’re not napping, you’re living way too close to the edge.
- Cats do it! This weirdly informative website I found called Catster states that sleep through 85% of their life. Cats use those naps to be super productive–they practically rule the Internet, and therefore essentially THE WHOLE WORLD. This is flawless logic: if you want to run the world with the power of a cat, you’ve got to start napping. Just one gets you hooked, I promise.
Note: Nappers Anonymous meets on the Ascension couches most afternoons, unless we oversleep.