Flexible Working Life

I need a lot of sleep.

I’ve always been like this and sometimes, I do feel a bit resentful about it.  It can be a pain needing so much sleep; it gets in the way when there’s so much to do.
When I was at college and had no children, I had the luxury of being able to snooze the morning away.  At weekends I could easily get up in the early afternoon feeling great.  Thinking back, it seems that I hardly ever suffered with hangovers like I do now, and I used to get just as much work done.  I was able to work till late at night, and catch up on my sleep in the day.  And if I was out drinking I slept the hangover off completly.  Since having my little boy, I now can’t sleep in past 7 am.  Even when he’s not at home.  So even if I don’t have to be up early and I’ve had a really late night, I still wake up at 6.30 am.  It’s like I’ve got an internal alarm clock.  At the moment, I do have to be up at that time, so if I was able to fall back to sleep I couldn’t do it, but I think I would really benefit from a ‘power-nap.’  And I really like the idea of taking a quick snooze in the day and being all rejuvenated from it.
Apparently, Florence Nightingale, Margaret Thatcher and Napolelon only needed four to five hours sleep a night, and I’ll bet they were having loads of power-naps to compensate.
I think the key is not to just have a doze, that won’t get you anywhere, from what I can gather, it’s got to be a really good nap.  A time when you go straight into the serious sleep bit, straight away so that your brain gets a chance to reboot and when you wake up you feel miles more refreshed and alive and have restored all your productivity.

Trouble is, whenever I go to lie down my mind just goes over all the stuff that I have to do, like a long list.  So I’m not getting any refreshment, just loads of anxiety thinking over all the stuff I’m not doing when lying down.

So, here’s my plan.  Each day after lunch, when I have that lull, I’m going to take the advice from this article and listen to an MP3 track designed for the perfect power nap.  I figure if I have some white noise playing in my ear, I’ll have something to focus on and should be able to clear my mind.  I also like the fact that they are a timed length, so this will stop me from checking the alarm and seeing how long I have left to nap.  Then I will wake up and be much more productive in the afternoon and wonder how I’ve ever gotten on without a little snooze in the day.  In fact, I’m already thinking I might have a go at it right now.  Yawn.

Stumble it!