Il Piccolo Pisolino (A Little Nap) – End of the Day for May 12, 2014

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There comes a time when we all need a moment to chill out and let the world just pass us by — if only for a few hours. I’ve had a few moments like that the last few days. Some would call these moments “taking a nap” by I would describe them more as “being taken over by a nap!” (LAUGH)

We all might push and push our way through the day but sometimes we need to pay attention to our bodies and our minds and just crash for a while. If you are having trouble staying awake, it’s your body telling you — very clearly — that it needs you to stop for a while. Sure, you can ignore it for a while but it will eventually catch up with you. You can’t postpone it forever and why would you want to. It seems a message this clear is one that should be obeyed.

Matteo and Rosanne sleep

Matteo Rinaldii and Rosanne take a “piccolo pisolino” in Sicily

Sure, you don’t have to sleep for hours — nor should you probably — unless it is overnight. Still a good 20 minutes of restful sleep could be just what the doctor ordered. It is said that Winston Churchill, among others famous in history, would often sleep for 20 minutes through the day and night. I have found this amount of time to be just about right for a daytime nap, too. It is enough time for you to feel rested when you wake, but not so much that you fall into deep REM sleep. You want to be able to get on with your day after a nap, not have it drag you down even further.

I know, I know. You might be saying, “But I HAVE to get this done!”
At these times, please remember the law of diminishing returns. The longer you postpone the rest the more difficult your work will become and the quality of that work will suffer, too. You might think you are being self-sacrificing and noble, but you are probably just causing more work for yourself and others later. It is always better to take a break and come back refreshed and renergized. Otherwise, you will probably just end up redoing most of the work you tried to do while you were exhausted.

I have seen far too many times the results of working when you are too tired. Entire documents, stories and even novels disappear into the digital ether. Web sites and other servers are knocked offline or deleted with one simple command. If you think you are stressed now, imagine the stress when you are trying to recover from such an epic blunder! Trust me, you don’t want to be there.

When visiting Sicily we quickly adapted to the pomeriggio (afternoon), dopo pranza (after lunch0, ) piccolo pisolino (little nap). Oh the decadence of such a nap for us wound-up Americani whose favorite question seemed to be Quando, quando, quando!” (when, when, when) (LAUGH) Our Sicilian family would always reply “qualtempo” (sometime) and leave it at that. Be outrageous, be decadent, be a little Sicilian for and afternoon and just take a nap!

When life is being busy, stressful or just plain crazy, take your body’s advice and grab a few Z’s. The sanity you save might just be your own!

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