This I believe
Picture this. You wake up and realize the power is out; naturally you are running late and have 25 minutes to eat breakfast and shower before your first class all the way across campus. The madness begins. It seems absolutely nothing could possibly be going your way today. You brought the wrong notebook to the next class. After that an unexpected trip to the restroom throws you even further off schedule to the point where you’re late to your quiz. The stress is unreal. After that you think about all the homework you have to finish tonight and that midterm that slowly but surely is sneaking ever closer. The work has piled up so naturally you should get to work as soon as possible because that can make things better right? No, of course not.
Think about it, do you really want to continue the rest of your day with that negative momentum you have going? I mean, part of it has to be luck but the fact that you already characterized the day as a bad day means that you already have a predisposition to negative outcomes. So, kill the bad streak. Restart the day. Take a nap. Seriously, just 17 minutes set aside every day to relax and regroup from the accumulated stress changed the way I look at my life. It really makes more sense than it sounds like at first. But whether I am tired or just stressed, taking a moment to breathe and doze off for a while has the potential to re-write the script of an otherwise disastrous day.
Even though it seems like I’m procrastinating or not using my time wisely, napping helps put me in a better position to get my everyday tasks done. It forces me to organize my day and to set small and focused goals which can make daunting tasks doable. It’s short enough that I don’t start a sleep cycle, which would make it impossibly difficult for me to wake up. But its long enough for me to rest, and that’s really the goal of it.
After the nap, I always wake up calm and with a newfound clarity, almost as if I found a way to slow down the pace to a day that seemed to be going a thousand times faster than what I could keep up with. I believe that napping can improve the quality of my everyday life and improve my efficiency when I’m working. It keeps me energized, relaxed and even better than that I have at least 17 minutes a day where I can keep my mind off the things that give me anxiety or cause me to worry. It’s all about discipline, if I know that I take no more that 10 minutes to wake up and then I get straight to work right after. I can hit the ground running and continue my day knowing that I relaxed and reenergized. Taking a nap gives me confidence and determination that would otherwise be fading as the day goes on. Because of my 17-minute nap I can handle anything that comes up after it in that day.