Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Reflections on NSD
Having my nap
National Siesta Day was a busy one for me, but I still managed to get my nap, a little earlier than usual given I got up at 4.30am yesterday. The wave of tiredness that is quite normal for all mammals (including humans!) occurs around 8 hours after we wake up in the morning. You can work that one out for yourself; do you feel a little sleepy after you've been up for 8 hours? It can coincide with lunch, but for many it's around 2-4pm, depending on when we wake in the morning.
Fitting a 10-20 minute nap into the day can be tricky, particularly if we have an early or late lunch, yet our 'sleepy time' might not coincide. In my practice as an Alexander Technique teacher I have to fit my break around the appointments people often make around lunchtime for their convenience. But it's not too hard to do so; I just eat first then purposefully put my head down and close my eyes and just let my mind wander. Surprisingly we don't need to even sleep in order to feel refreshed; if there are disturbances and noise around don't worry; just put your head back against the wall or lie down and do your best. Simply by letting your mind wander a little you may drift in stage 1 sleep and not even get to stage 2 sleep, but it will help.
it's most important that we do not sleep so long that we fall into a deeper sleep i.e. stage 3 or 4 sleep because we'll find it very difficult to wake up again and we'll feel terribly groggy. A full sleep cycle lasts around 90 minutes. Stage 1 of just starting to fall asleep (but still conscious) lasts around 5 minutes and stage 2 lasts for up to 30 minutes. After that we're into much deeper sleep. The perfect nap is when we manage to fall asleep but wake up again after around 20 minutes, so we're still in stage 2 sleep when we do so. Set your mobile phone alarm to wake you if possible.
I spent most of yesterday talking about the benefits of having a short nap; 100% improvement in alertness; 30% improvement in productivity and 34% reduction in risk of heart disease as well as helping to avoid accidents with machinery or on the roads. The benefits to health and longevity are very significant, all substantiated and proven in tests by NASA and Harvard University amongst other institutions. See more information on www.siestaawareness.org
I was tired by lunchtime, having done 17 live interviews on national and local TV and radio and communicated with around 40 million people during the day. It had gone well. but now I'm glad it's over and I can return to my work with the Alexander Technique. Some clients will be arriving shortly, so I'll get back to you again later!.
Have a good day....and nap! :-)
