by Lev Eldudin

We’ve all been there, and the decision is not an easy one. You’re home in the afternoon on a weekday, you find yourself having a couple more hours free than you expected. Do you take your siesta?

It sounds like a simple yes or no decision, but there are a lot of factors that play into the verdict. How long do I sleep for? Is it a couch or a bed endeavour? Shouldn´t I do that load of laundry that I’ve been putting off for weeks that has forced me to have to steal my roommate’s skid-marked underwear?

Recent research, not to mention Spanish culture, says forget the laundry and snooze it up. According to an article on BIO.com (http://http://web.archive.org/web/20070310193716/www.bio.com/newsfeatures/newsfeatures_research.jhtml?cid=19200022), a short nap is very natural after a long hearty afternoon meal (especially if the meal is cocido, in which case you want to sleep to forget the fact that you just ate that stuff). The article goes on to say that a short nap after eating can help prevent obesity, and can keep your mind functioning better for the rest of the day. Daytime sleep can also prevent narcolepsy, which is a scary, scary thing.

The real question though is how long to nap. If you’re out for too long, you’ll wake up feeling groggy, disoriented and sometimes even grumpy. And nobody likes a grumpy guy with skid marked underwear.

To avoid that, most sleep research suggests taking a power nap, somewhere between 15 and 45 minutes, but not longer. If you sleep longer, you will shift into the next, deeper stage of sleep, and interrupting that is what you feel when you wake up from a nap and have no idea where you are or what day it is. However, one full sleep cycle is about two and a half hours, so if you’re really dead you can get a nice, long, full nap, one that is usually reserved before a long night of partying.

The toughest part of taking a nap though, is the inescapable guilt. With every ´to nap or not to nap` internal debate comes the guilt. While our Spanish counterparts have long been famous for their post-meal pillow parties, the American in me still feels that guilt before every nap that I take. The internal battle is there whether or not we admit it to ourselves, but please, don’t let guilt take away what you hold most dear. You’ve got modern science behind you. Screw the man, set your alarm, hop into your bed or couch or floor or cardboard box, and snore away!