What better way to relieve yourself of stress than to take a quick nap?
Now I know this sounds pretty basic and simple, but speaking from personal experience, naps have helped me with the most.
Daunting tasks and stressful emotions have their ways of occupying our minds, especially during heavy-study and work periods (such as around midterms and finals week). While it is important to continue our studies and strive for our best performance, it is also important to work with less stressful environments, which can also make work and efforts more effective!
Power naps (less that 30 minutes), while short, are very useful when it comes to refreshing the brain and easing the mind. These small but mighty naps can clear one’s head, creating a new, less stressful environment for creative ideas to circulate around. In addition to this, they are effective at increasing energy and balancing moods, helping to decrease stress levels. But don’t get me wrong – I do love my 1-2 hour naps.
In short, naps serve as energizing stress relievers!
Now whether they are for fatigue or stress, naps have always been my best friend. They help me feel more motivated to do my work and allow me to forget about everything that has been inflicting stress upon me for a period of time! (In fact, I took a nap before writing this blog and it was certainly helpful in my brainstorming process!)
Taking naps have also always been suggested by my coaches during track season too – which is where the idea of “power naps” was introduced to me. Our coaches knew they were putting us to work, draining us of our energy, so in turn, they always suggested taking power naps to regain some of our energy without sleeping for too long so that we could remain productive throughout the day. This especially helped on those days with loads of homework – track practice was mandatory everyday, and some days I would come back home to hours of work.
On top of that, it has been proven that naps (especially at early ages) help with developing a better memory. Why do you think nap time was such a big part of Kindergarten? Yes, us energetic kids needed to settle down, but also they helped in the long run!
My point is this: naps may take out portions of your day, but the benefits outweigh the costs. And even professionals agree!
Naps aren’t all that bad! They serve plentiful benefits while acting as a method to relieve stress.
As a person who is always stressed, I love sleeping. Power naps especially keep me going through the week. I would crash instantly if I didn’t nap throughout the week. Even though power naps are short, I feel like I am getting a whole night’s worth of sleep in 20 minutes.
I personally did not start taking naps until about my senior year of high school. At first I hated them because I would fall asleep for hours at a time and throw off my sleep schedule. However, now that I’ve got the hang of timing my naps, you’re right to say they help out a lot!