Are you a fan of napping sleep?

Dr..

Kamal Abdul Malik

November 18, 2022

I have a dear friend who works in the United Arab Emirates as a professor of psychiatry. We used to meet every evening for a walk.

We do not meet until after seven, that is, after his nap, which is no less than two hours, after which the interesting conversation flows between us about literature, philosophy and life experiences.

But if he misses this nap, I find him ill-tempered, short-tempered, and complaining a lot.

And when I started looking for siesta in the East and West, I knew that Naguib Mahfouz, like my friend, was used to sleeping siesta and that on the day he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature he was absorbed in his usual nap.

Throughout history, there have been notable people who have avoided the famous advice of eight hours of sleep, eight hours of work, and eight hours of play.

Margaret Thatcher is said to have slept for only four hours a night and Mariah Carey, the American singer, is said to need 15 hours of uninterrupted sleep to be at her best.

There is also a list of famous and more impressive historical people than Thatcher and Carrie whose daytime naps helped in their work and achievements.

Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb, publicly claimed that sleep is the enemy of productivity.

He said he only sleeps four hours a night and has reportedly demanded the same from his staff.

However, it appears that Edison was not as observant as he claimed, as there are many photographs of the famous innovator taking naps in various locations and it is said that there are different cots at his workplace and home.

Leonardo da Vinci, the famous Renaissance painter, was so accustomed to this unusual pattern of sleep that in some circles his name is synonymous with polyphasic sleep.

Polyphasic sleep, or the Da Vinci sleep schedule, requires people to take several 10-minute naps for a total of no more than two hours per day.

Winston Churchill loved napping, and unlike Addison, Churchill was a big proponent of sleeping and napping.

In his book The Gathering Storm, the World War II prime minister described a nap as "the blessed oblivion, which, even if it lasts only 20 minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces".

Like Sir Churchill's strict regime, JFK was a firm believer in the afternoon siesta.

Apparently his wife, Jackie, who always joined the president in his one- to two-hour snooze, was also a fan, propagating the habit to Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson. Seven for a woman, and eight for a fool.

However, the famous military leader was fond of his naps.

In addition to going days without sleep and devoting himself to the military cause, Napoleon could nap whenever he wanted, and it is said that he slept before battles and sometimes during battles.

The painter Salvador Dali was sitting with a key in his hand under a metal plate, and he woke up as soon as he eased his grip with sleep and the key fell on the metal plate, causing a loud sound.

This strange Spanish technique allowed him to get all the sleep he felt he needed to rejuvenate the creative energy within him and get back to the canvas.

So are you a fan of napping sleep?

Visiting scholar at Harvard University

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