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Dogs do it, cats do it, humans do it, it's a natural thing to take a nap at any age. A main reason people don't nap is because they're conditioned to think it's unproductive or a sign of laziness. We had to invent the term "Power nap" to make people feel less guilty about it.
I remember women in my workplace saying that they wanted a "Fainting Room", a quiet place to recline and rest during the work day. They didn't get one.
I agree with all you said. I remember when I napped at work during late-stage pregnancy, I had to sneak around for a place to do it, & have a empathetic female co-worker come to wake me.
There is no shame in napping, sleep in any form is necessary.
Do you take naps? Do you find taking naps can make it harder to fall asleep at bedtime?
For almost all of my life since I can first remember, I was a "morning person". Would always wake up at dawn and be on the go for the day. Didn't mind the Sunday morning paper route with its heavy load because nobody was up and the city was MINE!!! The last couple of decades in my professional working life, I had to arise at 4:15 in the morning to meet the vanpool for the drive to work. On those nights that I taught at the community college, class gets out at 10:00 and I found my mind was so wired that I couldn't fall asleep until midnight...then up again at 4:15 the next morning.
That was tough, but I endured just fine. Then I retired and moved to a very different environment in the "high latitudes". Since I was newly retired and didn't have to get up, and because the daylight hours didn't start as early, I slept in until I was fully rested. Those first few years I didn't get out of bed until around 9:00. And as a result, I didn't retire for the night until around midnight. I never used to stay up that late, voluntarily. My whole life awake cycle has changed drastically.
Maybe one day out of a week will I take a nap. Those are usually on Sunday afternoon, the day I set aside to "rest" and not do any manual/physical labor. Don't watch sports on TV, so Sunday afternoons can get a bit boring. I'm trying to shift my awake hours to wake up earlier in the day and retire earlier in the evening. Making minor progress on that.
To specifically answer the questions...Yes, I take naps, but rarely. And, they do not make it more difficult to fall asleep at bedtime. I'm usually dead to the world within five minutes of my head hitting the pillow.
I've been napping for decades and it doesn't affect my sleep.
I found that once I reached my 50s, I started to fall asleep in front of the tv a lot anyways.
I read that in general, naps should not be longer than 1 hour. If you take a longer nap than that, then you enter a deep sleep stage. Waking up from a deep sleep can cause grogginess and can worsen sleepiness.
However, if you nap for a full 90 minutes, then your body can progress through the 4 stages of sleep and you should feel refreshed because you are waking up from a light sleep stage and not a deep sleep stage.
Potential benefits of naps - increased alertness, reduced stress, better cognitive skills and improved mood.
I have the gift of sleep. It's been with me all my life.
But the only time I allowed myself the luxury of a scheduled nap was when I was going to college and my husband was drafted so I was alone. It was summertime and I was taking summer classes which started at 7:00am. In those days I still had a nightlife so around 5:00 in the afternoon I'd lay down for a nap and wake again after an hour.
I think I needed more sleep as a young person than I do now.
After a while it became a burden. No matter where I was around five o' clock my eyelids would begin to droop. Didn't like the lack of flexibility for me.
Of course, during raising children napping was out of the question.
As I've aged I've discovered if I nap too long I wake up disoriented and fuzzy headed. It's not a pleasant feeling. So now I
take occasional cat naps. Don't ever lie down with the intent to nap but if I have a long wait somewhere, say the doctor's office, I'll just close my eyes and drift off for a while.
I figure age gives me the privilege of looking a little silly in public. "Whaddaya lookin' at? I'm nappin' here."
My dad came home from work every day for lunch. Then cat napped on the davenport listening to the news for an hour, got up and went back to work. I asked him if he wasn't afraid he'd sleep too long and he said he automatically woke after an hour.
I love naps. Right after I retired I would still get up about 0230 or 0300, read the news a couple of hours, then go take a nap till about 8 or 9. Then, I would read the news again, eat lunch and take another nap. Then go to bed about midnight and start over.
After 40 years of sleep deprivation my naps and my 10 or 11,000 steps are the most important things for me. I've slowly adjusted to sleeping till about 0630 or 0700 now, read the news, then take a nap till about 1030 or so. Life has never been so luxurious for me.
It kind of bothered DW for a while then she went through a few weeks of little sleep and now has a good understanding.
When I get sleepy I'm going down even if it hair-lips the pope.
Many seniors take naps during retirement to help them feel refreshed and energized throughout the day.
My doctor is strongly opposed to napping to avoid disrupting nighttime sleep patterns.
Do you take naps? Do you find taking naps can make it harder to fall asleep at bedtime?
I did not read this whole thread, but am just striving to write 500 more posts in the Retirement forum, to establish my new identity of a Retiree :-). Thinking about this nap issue, I grew up in a country where a late lunch (the main meal of the day, since for most people the work ended at 2 pm) was routinely followed by afternoon napping - but interestingly, that was common only among men (both those who worked or were retired); women didn't seem to nap. Both of my grandfathers napped daily, while the grandmothers never did. My father started napping in that fashion in his late 40s. My mother would slip in the bed with him in the afternoon, but she would read or play solitaire in the bed, and never actually sleep. If I knocked on their door looking for something, she would quietly tell me to come in and then she'd put the finger on her lips in the "psst!" fashion to warn me not to wake up dad who was snoring.
Anyway, I'm 63 and I don't nap. Only if for some reason I didn't sleep the previous night (eg, if I took a redeye flight), I go to sleep at 3 or 4 pm and wake up the following morning.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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On Saturday I decided to do some work outside. I pulled up all of the vegetable plants in the greenhouse, and disassembled it completely, loading the remains into the truck for the dumps. Then I mowed the lawn, spread moss killer granules on some spots on the patio and driveway, and removed/put away a window air conditioner in the family room. After that about 2pm, I was pretty tired, so came in, sat in my recliner with a cold beer, and watched college football until dinner time, which I cooked. Even at 71 I just can't waste time sleeping during the day.
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