Yes, you read that title correctly. After all, the first step in solving a problem is admitting you have it, right? Well, I’m here to talk about my napping problem.
For most of my life, I was never a very big napper. Sure, I’d take them from time to time, and I can sleep in late with the best of them, but I wouldn't nap too lavishly. But this last year, I started to nap on a more consistent (and inconsistent, I suppose) basis.
I don’t think I’m alone in that regard. With the late nights, the early mornings and the just flat out exhausting schedule that seems to come in tandem with college (the last one is probably avoidable, but that's not very fun), sleep just seems to get forgotten about in the grand scheme of things. Eight hours slowly ends up at a dwindling five, and before you know it, exhaustion sets in. So how does one counter the seemingly ineffective nightly shut-eye? Naps.
Some are shorter, lasting only 20 minutes, taken on the couch in between classes and after lunch. But others can be hours long, starting after the final class of the day and running until long after the doors of the dining hall are closed. Sometimes they work like they're supposed to, leaving you feeling revived and energized, while others seem to only make you feel worse, as if lead is pumping through your veins. It's like a game of Russian Roulette: sometimes you win, but a loss can often be worse than the situation before.
Last year, naps were a daily routine. I'd go to my early morning class, waking up 15 minutes before I had to be there, suffer through the class itself and then collapse back into bed as soon as possible, waking up only when necessary. To be honest, it worked pretty well; I only occasionally felt worse upon waking, and often times I had more than enough energy to last till the end of the day. But that was the problem.
Instead of using my middle-of-the-day nap as work time, I made up for it by staying up so late. I was transplanting that sleep time from the nighttime to the daytime, and vice versa with work. Instead of getting a healthy eight hours every night, I'd get six at night and two in the afternoon. Just not practical.
On top of that, now that I've been at home and on a regular schedule this summer, I still take naps. Which means, when 11 o'clock comes around and the 6:30 a.m. wake up for work looms, I am too awake to even think about sleeping. So, even though I was hoping summer would be routine, scheduled and relaxing, it's turned into the school year with just a little less math.
I guess the real question is whether or not my napping schedule will change this year. Probably not. It's not that I don't recognize how impractical it is, it's just that seems to be how the entire campus operates. Until around 4 p.m., campus seems to be pretty quiet; it comes alive once classes are done, regardless of the academic pressure that is on everyones' shoulders 24/7.
Napping is kind of ruining my life, but I guess, for now, I'm okay with it.
