I’m Exhausted All the Time. Could Afternoon Naps Change My Life?

This article originally appeared on Outside

As a working mother of an eight-month-old, I'm in a near constant state of sleep deprivation. I stumble through workdays in a haze. More than once, I've arrived at the office and realized that I'd left my laptop at home, 20 miles away. I yawn in meetings and only keep up with my to-do list by the grace of a $10-a-day coffee habit.

So when my editor assigned me a story that required sleeping every day at work, I felt a surge of gratitude. For a period of three weeks, I'd lie down for 30 minutes each afternoon. I'd track my productivity, mood, and energy level to gauge whether a daily siesta made me better at my job--and happier overall.

Research shows that napping can boost memory and improve mood. But I soon discovered that dozing off at the office is considerably harder than it sounds. On the first day, I got so wrapped up in meetings that I forgot about it entirely. The next day didn't go much better: I unrolled my yoga mat on my office floor and shut the door. But instead of drifting off, I lay there obsessing about what I had to accomplish before the end of the day. "I have been up with the baby since 4 A.M.," read the post-nap recap, "but I kept listing all the things I still had to do. Did not sleep for one minute."

It went like that for two weeks, until finally I enlisted the help of Kelly Murray, a sleep consultant who works with both adults and babies. We quickly determined my problem: I was trying too hard! The more I forced it, she said, the less success I'd have. She urged me to dial back the pressure. If a nap felt unattainable, I'd practice breathing exercises, which can bring about a meditative state of deep rest. According to Murray, deep rest quiets the mind and offers benefits similar to sleep, like reducing stress and promoting learning.

Murray also suggested some changes to my napping environment. Ideally, I would hole up somewhere other than my workstation. The lights should be low, and maybe some calming lavender oil would help. I also needed to cut back on caffeine.

Next I called Valerie Cacho, a behavioral sleep physician, who explained that winding down is a process. "At the gym, you don't go straight to the heaviest weights. You jog or warm up," she said. She suggested a little pre-nap journaling to free myself of my busy thoughts.

Armed with these strategies, I dived back into the experiment. I worked from home, which allowed me to take naps in bed. It was easier to drink less coffee when I was the one who had to make it, rather than a barista at the cafe near the office, and that helped me scale back on caffeine. Every day around noon, I dimmed the lights, jotted down the afternoon's tasks to clear my head, and once or twice even applied some lavender lotion. Then I focused on my breath, counting my inhales and exhales. And something truly magical happened: I drifted off into a light sleep.

Did I step back to my desk happier and refreshed? I did. Was I more productive? That, too. But the truth is, I missed my coffee habit more than I reveled in these gains. The morning after the experiment ended, I headed straight to the cafe.

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