Take a Nap! Change Your Life.

Description

Imagine a product that increases alertness, boosts creativity, reduces stress, improves perception, stamina, motor skills, and accuracy, enhances your sex life, helps you make better decisions, keeps you looking younger, aids in weight loss, reduces the risk of heart attack, elevates your mood, and strengthens memory. Now imagine that this product is nontoxic, has no dangerous side effects, and, best of all, is absolutely free. This miracle drug is, in fact, nothing more than the nap: the right nap at the right time. The work of Sara C. Mednick, Ph.D., a researcher at the Salk Institute and the leading authority on the study of the nap, Take a Nap! Change Your Life. is the scientifically-based breakthrough program that shows how we can fight the fatigue epidemic—which afflicts an estimated 50 million Americans—through a custom-designed nap. Take a Nap! Change Your Life. explains the five stages of the sleep cycle, particularly Stage Two, Slow Wave Sleep, and REM, and the benefits each one provides; how to assess your tiredness and set up a personal sleep profile; and how to neutralize the voice in your head that tells you napping is a sign of laziness. (Not that anyone would have called JFK, Churchill, Einstein, or Napoleon a slug-a-bed.) Using the unique Nap Wheel on the cover and interior graphs and charts, it shows us exactly when our optimum napping time is, and exactly how long we should try to sleep—even how it’s possible to design a nap to inspire creativity one day, and the next day design one to help us with our memory. There are tips on how to create the right nap environment, a 16-step technique for falling asleep, a six-week napping workbook, and more. Cover Page Dedication Acknowledgments Contents Introduction: The Couch at Harvard Part One: The Basics Chapter 1. The new nap: not your grandfather’s siesta It is written . . . in our DNA The siesta is dead. Long live the nap! Chapter 2. Fatigue: a hidden epidemic The walking tired Asleep on the job: a threat to safety Warning: Losing sleep is hazardous to your health Chapter 3. The nap manifesto: what napping can do for you Part Two: The Principles Chapter 4. The stages of sleep: building blocks of the nap Waves and scans: the sleeping brain revealed The sleep cycle To be continued . . . Chapter 5. Dissecting sleep: making a nap work for you The shadow cycles Stage 2: the constant companion Napping vs. nighttime sleep Chapter 6. Optimized Napping: the secret formula The lark and the owl A nap to call your own Part Three: The Program Chapter 7. Your sleep profile: getting to know yourself How tired are you? Checking your calendar Different naps for different folks Chapter 8. Nap time: it’s easier than you think It’s about time Clearing the way Free your mind and your nap will follow Okay, you’re cleared to nap! Stay motivated! Chapter 9. Extreme napping: exploring the outer limits Überman to the rescue? Napping for “normal” emergencies Napping across time zones Chapter 10. A nap-positive society Workers of the world, nap! Power points of workplace napping Appendix Glossary The scientific formula for creating the precise nap to suit your needs About the Authors Copyright Page