Not Sure What to Do? Sleep on It for the Answer

?If you’re struggling with a problem and answers are eluding you, you might take a nap. It seems counterintuitive that shutting down active thinking and drifting off to sleep will help, but numerous studies?have shown that napping offers benefits in many areas of your life.

Even after taking a short, 20-minute nap, you will feel refreshed, relaxed, and alert, and your mood and attitude will improve. You also will experience less stress and can more effectively cope with frustration. But that’s not all. Your memory will improve, you will be more creative, and the solutions you are looking for can surface more easily--and may be better than anything you could have come up with if you keep at it instead of napping.

Advice from Harvard Medical School suggests that the best way to get the most from a nap is to:

• Keep it between 20 and 30 minutes.
• Choose a dark, quick, cool place.
• Nap before sleepiness overwhelms you.
• Coordinate coffee or other caffeinated beverages to not interfere with your ability to nap.

Not sure it works? Here are some famous thinkers, artists, and leaders who believed in the power of napping.

Salvador Dali napped to gain insight and creativity for his work.

Margaret Thatcher napped every afternoon as did Winston Churchill, who coined the term "power napping."

Leonardo da Vinci took a 15-minute every 4 hours in what became known as "polyphasic sleep" or the "Da Vinci sleep schedule."

“Nature has not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces.” — Winston Churchill

Thanks for reading. You can find more of my articles at?Medium.com?(affiliate link) and information about my workforce development and coaching programs at?www.phaddock.com