The Power of the Cat Nap

Erin is tak­ing a break from writ­ing. In the mean­time, we will run sto­ries she has pre­vi­ous­ly writ­ten and pub­lished to her blog, the om place. This piece was first pub­lished in August 2020, as we were still reel­ing from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Although Erin was explor­ing ways to deal with COVID-induced anx­i­ety, lots of peo­ple are anx­ious today for oth­er rea­sons. We thought this piece might be help­ful.

I blink my eyes open and peer at my watch. 2:17 PM. I yawn and swing my legs onto the floor, then bend at the waist to stretch my back. Back in the Before, this was the time of day when I wrote. But that was Before. Most days, I trade writ­ing for napping.

Because most days, I’m exhaust­ed. All sum­mer long, I have been blam­ing hor­mones for my lag­ging ener­gy and moti­va­tion. I’m def­i­nite­ly less focused and more for­get­ful these days. Gotta be the low­ered estro­gen, right? Or maybe I need my thy­roid checked. Possibly I have adren­al fatigue.

Then I remem­ber Occam’s Razor, or the idea that “the sim­plest expla­na­tion is most like­ly the right one.” While any of these ideas would explain my fatigue, I take real­ly good care of my body. I eat well, med­i­tate, drink plen­ty of water, and exer­cise dai­ly. So if it isn’t phys­i­cal, it’s prob­a­bly mental.

It final­ly occurred to me that I’m griev­ing. We all are. We are col­lec­tive­ly nav­i­gat­ing great loss and loss is exhaust­ing. Humans are wired to like answer­able ques­tions, but the pan­dem­ic has giv­en us loss with­out the wis­dom that aris­es from closure. 

Some of us are griev­ing deaths of friends or fam­i­ly. Since March, there have been three funer­als that I would have attend­ed were it not for covid. Coupled with the fact that I wouldn’t be see­ing these peo­ple any­way right now, their deaths seem abstract, like a dream. 

Some of us are griev­ing those rites of pas­sage that mark human time, like grad­u­a­tions, birth­day par­ties, and bap­tisms. If it isn’t cel­e­brat­ed, then did it hap­pen? We’re also griev­ing those tiny moments that we took for grant­ed, like the school bus pick­ing up our child or hug­ging that friend we run into at the grocery. 

Lots of us are griev­ing sports. I’ve been watch­ing the Reds this week, and while I am thrilled to have base­ball back in my life, it’s dis­ori­ent­ing to see the Great American Ballpark emp­ty and hear cheers that are clear­ly being piped in over the inter­com. My brain is equal­ly enter­tained and confused.

Everything takes twice as long to do half as much. Worst of all, there seems to be no end to this exhaust­ing After.

Like so many oth­er fam­i­lies, we spent much of quar­an­tine nest­ing. We moved fur­ni­ture and swept behind the dressers and final­ly replaced the blinds in our bed­room. We moved the bed in the guest bed­room so that now it has the best view in the whole house. We bought new sheets and pil­lows and fixed the fan over the bed, mak­ing an invit­ing and relax­ing space should we ever have house­guests again. 

The room is so invit­ing, in fact, that it has been call­ing me. In the after­noons, the sun is still high enough to paint the whole room gold­en with­out being harsh. The new fan cre­ates just enough ambi­ent noise that I feel alone, even when Izzie and David are home. I can lean into the soft, downy pil­lows to read or just stare out at the val­ley. The cat is invit­ed, but not the dog (Cat Stevens naps like a boss, but Barkley rolls around and takes up too much space). It is not a room for work­ing, but a space for resting. 

I have had to low­er my pro­duc­tiv­i­ty expec­ta­tions. For me, this is not the time for great cre­ative out­put, but a time to shore up and do less. Because even though there are plen­ty of moments of beau­ty and hope, there are also equal amounts of despair and dis­ori­en­ta­tion. And I’m not alone. According to cur­rent Census Bureau data, more than a third of Americans are feel­ing severe anx­i­ety or depres­sion right now. 

And so, naps. Humans nat­u­ral­ly expe­ri­ence an increase in drowsi­ness about 8–10 hours after wak­ing. A short nap dur­ing this win­dow of time leaves us calmer, hap­pi­er, and more focused. A well-rest­ed brain is much bet­ter at pro­cess­ing the glu­cose we get from food, giv­ing us more men­tal ener­gy through­out the day and help­ing our diges­tive sys­tem work opti­mal­ly. Naps basi­cal­ly reboot us phys­i­cal­ly, men­tal­ly, and spiritually. 

Daytime naps should last between 10 and 30 min­utes; longer naps move us into deep­er brain wave states and will make it hard­er to fall – and stay – asleep at night. And with more peo­ple work­ing remote­ly, the after­noon nap is now with­in reach.

I imag­ine the care­givers are gnash­ing their teeth about now, insist­ing that a nap is mag­i­cal think­ing. But even those with small chil­dren or car­ing for aging par­ents can carve out ten min­utes a day for them­selves. The more stress we are under, the more impor­tant self-care prac­tices like naps become.

And for those of us that sim­ply can­not fall asleep? No mat­ter. Resting your eyes in a hor­i­zon­tal posi­tion will give you sim­i­lar ben­e­fits, even if you don’t actu­al­ly doze off. For those with severe anx­i­ety, try lis­ten­ing to bin­au­r­al beats or a yoga nidra script from YouTube. 

I hear my bed call­ing. I’m out.