Americans aren’t spending enough time with their eyes closed.
Over the past four or five years, I’ve fallen in love. Even that description is too weak for what I’ve experienced. Smitten, infatuated, head over heels—these synonyms come a bit closer, but still miss the mark.
This demi-goddess I worship generally arrives just after lunch. Wordless, as in Sandburg’s “Fog,” she arrives on “little cat feet,” gently takes my hand in hers, leads me to my Lazy-Boy, and snuggles beside me beneath a light blanket. She kisses my eyes closed, eases my breathing, pushes me into the cushions, and by her grace steals away, however momentarily, my troubles and my obligations.
I’m speaking, of course, of my afternoon nap.
Much earlier in my life, I took a daily afternoon snooze, but I was a toddler then and have no memory of those naptimes, gratefully appreciated, no doubt, by my mother. For the rest of my life, sacking out between dawn and nighttime was as rare as a Carolina snow in May. On those few occasions that I did indulge, I woke up wishing Americans everywhere practiced the custom of the siesta, as this division by sleep seems to make two days out of one.
Only in the past few years, when the work I do is still plentiful but completed now on my own timetable, have I availed myself of a regular nap. Unlike some older folks I know, who slumber for an hour or more, I find that half an hour in the Lazy-Boy clears my jumbled mind like an eraser across a whiteboard. I wake up renewed in spirit and energy; in fact, I began these very words just minutes after kicking aside the blanket.
In my younger days—ages 10 to 65—my bedtime habits weren’t the best. I got along on five to six hours of shut-eye most nights, and I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve slept past 10 a.m. as an adult. When I did wake up late, I always felt as if I had wasted half the day. In the words of the immortal John Wayne, I was “burning daylight.” Even today, I generally hit the hay an hour or so before midnight and rise with the dawn.
Experts list several causes for our sleep-deprived citizens, ranging from the frenetic pace demanded by so many of our jobs and duties to our overuse of caffeinated drinks. Lately, studies have shown that screen time—phones and laptops—before bedtime can also keep us awake, revving up our brains with information and stimulating our emotions. Social media, in particular, can affect our young people, causing them to click away on their devices until the wee hours of the morning.
This lack of sleep has consequences. It makes us less sharp, more forgetful, more prone to traffic accidents, and liable to nod off during Aunt Mathilda’s slide show of her trip to Canada 30 years ago. (OK, we might crash during that one even with eight hours of shuteye.) Inadequate sleep can also make us short-tempered and grouchy, which may explain why we Americans are so easily riled these days by our political opponents. A bit more time with our heads on a pillow might just bring some peace to our uncivil society.
Anyway, the old maxim, “Do as I say, not as I did” applies here. For more than 50 years, I realize now, I walked through many a daylight hour sleep-deprived, getting much done, to be sure, but also lost in a fog some of the time. Clearly, I’m a slow learner.
No need for you to be the same.
Hug those sheets and get some sleep.
