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.