A day without a nap is a day wasted. Learn how you should nap..

“A day without a nap is a day wasted”

It's 1:00 pm. A stifled yawn escapes from my mouth, my eyelids are growing heavy, my shoulders are drooping and I'm drifting off to a place where the grass is green and the skies are blue. It's naptime for me. There's nothing quite like an afternoon snooze to rejuvenate the mind and, most importantly, the body. Even though North America is a productive society, unfortunately, in our overly regulated 24/7 work-a-day routines, the art of napping has been, somehow, under-rated.

There are many of us who are not people of the siesta, unlike some Latin Americans and Europeans who view 10-30 minutes of shut-eye in mid-afternoon as a worthwhile tradition. In Mexico and in Greece it's customary to close shop sometime after high noon so shopkeepers can count sheep. Not only is napping a practice in many countries, but some of the world’s most influential leaders have practiced this custom. While leading a victorious campaign during the Battle of Britain, Sir Winston Churchill took naps. His Italian enemy, Benito Mussolini, also napped, however, it is said to have cost him the war. Napleon Bonaparte, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy have also have been in the ranks of notable nappers. (all of them napping, of course, for the benefit of the nation). Seven-time Tour De France winner, Lance Armstrong, napped his way to the podium. His coach, Chris Carmichael says that these "naps were critical” in his overall training plan.

Despite a history of positive views of napping, many people today still frown upon this sleep tradition because most of the western world tends to associate napping with lethargy and non-productivity. However times are changing, and there is now a North American group called the World Nap Organization which proclaims itself as "the nap lobby —an unabashed special interest group devoted to battling negative images of the blissful practice of nap-taking."

The art of napping is staging a come-back. The evidence is mounting, and our day-to-day lifestyles are reinforcing the notion that napping does the body good.

If you’re a student, you’re usually up at the crack of dawn, ready to hit class and to get down to learning. You’ve made your meals for the day, and head off to train, to study and then hit the sack. If a student’s lucky they’ll usually get 6 hours of quality sleep a night. If you’re a college athlete, you’ll have mandatory practices, games, training sessions and course-work. For those of you in the work force who put in an 8-15 hour day, 5-6 days a week combined with several intense training sessions a each week. . .well you get the idea. . .sleep is a luxury. For females, if it’s that time of month sleep can become compromised, usually for the duration of the menstruation. And, let’s not forget stay-at-home moms and dads (hey, it’s a liberated era). Sleepless nights from attending to a newborn (did you know that this results in 400-750 hours of lost sleep for parents in the first year?). Running the kids to soccer practice and ballet, cooking dinner, and house chores can take quite the toll on the body.

Even Super Hero’s Take Naps

When it comes to making progress in the gym, people take into account their training, nutrition and supplementation. They spend hours tweaking their routines, finding the right performance-boosting supplements, and making sure, as they prepare and cook their meals that they are eating the right foods at the right time of day. Unfortunately, it’s the need for quantity and quality of sleep that is often overlooked in a trainee’s routine. Sleeping eight hours a day is not always enough and, even then, the quality may be poor.