Permission to Nap

Do you remember ‘having” to take a nap when you were a kid? Usually for me it was right after eating lunch and watching cartoons. Little did we know that is was really for our mom’s to get a break from dealing with kids all day.

Hopefully, it was their time to nap also. Napping is a fading past-time that we need to resurrect!

While living in France, I noticed the whole country (ALL of Europe) shuts down for two hours around noon. This is for lunch and napping! Napping for only twenty minutes can recharge our entire nervous system. When we lie down for a nap or put our head back in the chair and nod, this may cause us to jump sometime. After that little jump our nerve cells have been fully recharged! That is the time to get up from your nap! We are officially ready to go for the rest of the day. For some people this could take as little as ten minutes, but I think a good twenty minutes is better.

When we miss hours of sleep, our body can not physiologically make that time up with sleeping longer on another day. Sleep is for regeneration (anabolic phase) of cells and degeneration of old worn out cells (catabolic phase). Sleep makes us more beautiful, inside and out. The earlier we go to bed (by 9 or 10pm) more DHEA is released. This hormone is our anti-aging hormone.

So for two to three days a week, take a beauty bath (see previous blogs) and go to bed by 9 p.m. See if there is a difference in your energy level? A sunnier disposition?

What I think the best thing is about sleep is that it is FREE! Not much in life is free anymore. A free, secret beauty treatment that doesn’t cause pain and bruising…

Ahh, bon nuit!
and Happy Napping!