power nap

you're dragging through the afternoon like a zombie with a laptop. your focus is shot, your creativity is nonexistent, and you're making mistakes you wouldn't make at 9 AM. so you reach for another coffee. maybe an energy drink. anything to keep the engine running.

what if instead, you just... turned it off for 20 minutes?

napping isn't lazy

somewhere along the way, our culture decided that resting during the day is a sign of weakness. that's insane. NASA studied pilot performance and found that a 26-minute nap improved alertness by 54% and job performance by 34%. the roman empire, the spanish siesta, japanese inemuri — napping has been a feature of productive societies for millennia.

you're not lazy for needing a nap. you're biologically programmed to have an energy dip in the early afternoon. fighting it is fighting your own physiology.

the science of the power nap

the sweet spot is 10-20 minutes. that keeps you in light sleep stages where you get restoration without the grogginess of deep sleep. set a timer. close your eyes. you don't even need to fall fully asleep — just resting in a dark, quiet space does most of the work.

anything over 30 minutes risks sleep inertia, where you wake up feeling worse than before. and napping after 3 PM can mess with your nighttime sleep. so keep it short and keep it early afternoon.

the experiment

tomorrow, instead of your afternoon coffee, take a 20-minute nap. then track your productivity for the rest of the day. compare it to a normal caffeine-powered afternoon. most people are genuinely shocked by the difference.

the key is giving yourself permission. you're not slacking. you're doing scheduled maintenance on the most important machine you own — your brain.

try it once

find a quiet spot, set a 20-minute alarm, and close your eyes. that's it. if you accomplished more afterward, you have your answer. stop wearing exhaustion as a badge of honor.

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