Opinion Sur Joven

Downtown, 2.30 p.m. Thousands of people walk in a hurry in different directions. Many of them probably work at an office in Buenos Aires business district. I try to stop walking, but I realize it’s almost impossible. A sea of people drags me I don’t know where and, though this isn’t the best moment for it, I wonder: what ever happened to napping?

We start this dream trip in search of an answer, and in a twinkle of an eye we wake up in a Roman town. As we are told, we have worked pretty hard in the morning, it’s the sixth hour -our current midday and the root of the word “siesta”, a short nap.

Now that we know the origins of napping, and having in mind that in some cases this practice represents a not-so-healthy habit, it’s necessary to find out how true this belief is. We start dreaming back in time again and wake up in an utterly silent room. It looks like a very studious person’s room. There are piles and piles of physics books, and among them lies a note that reads: “Naps are good to refresh your mind and make you more creative”. A few steps away, Albert Einstein is resting.

If we take into account that other brilliant minds such as Da Vinci and Edison also defended this pleasurable practice, at least now we know naps aren’t always associated to lazy people. The problem in Argentina started when this and other habits became opposed to the changes in the way we worked: more and more labor was needed in large urban centers, and this wasn’t compatible with taking a couple hours off at noon.

However, our relationship with naps started long ago in Argentina, and even our motherland, Spain, is well-known for its “siestas”. What’s more, people who disturb others during nap hours are fined 750 Euros in a district in Valencia.

Nap Land

In Buenos Aires, as well as in many other cities in Argentina and Latin America, naps are no longer a common habit. However, the hottest hours of the day are still synonyms of resting in some regions. Argentina’s most common case takes place in Santiago del Estero. Argentinians traditionally make jokes about the sleepy “Santiagueños”, but those laughs actually conceal disagreement.

Juan, a young student who lives in La Banda, a city in said province, says “naps are sacred”. He tells us that, in Santiago, people wake up very early to go to work and that “at ‘siesta’ hours you can’t even find a dog awake”. He attends a double-shift school. When he goes back home at noon, he uses those hours to sleep. In his room he has a computer with broadband Internet access and many programs to edit music, his favorite activity. Anyway, if he has to choose, taking a nap always comes first for Juan.

A few people may be seen on the streets at the sacred hours, but the nap habit is generally accepted by everyone and even stores are closed. An urban legend in Santiago says that, during those hours, a terrifying creature called “Alma Mula” wanders through the streets dragging a chain and exuding fire through the eyes, in search of victims or incredulous journalists. Does anybody remember when our parents used to tell us to go to sleep, or the bogeyman would get us? Well, let’s thank our parents, because in Santiago the Alma Mula apparently succeeded in the audition for the role.

The sleep debt

To know more about naps, we must get to know in detail the different characteristics and stages of sleep. Dr. Alejandro Ferrero, head of Instituto Ferrero de Neurología y Sueño, assures to Opinión Sur Joven that, along with healthful eating, breathing and exercising, having a good sleep is essential to live a healthy life.

When we decide to take a nap, we should sleep for an hour, tops; the best option, however, is to sleep for no longer than thirty minutes. Otherwise, the nap starts competing with the night’s sleep.

Sleep is divided into four stages. The first two stages are related to light sleep, and the last two are related to deep sleep. The fourth stage is the rapid eye movement sleep (REM), and it’s the moment when dreams or nightmares occur. These stages are repeated in cycles. By taking a nap for longer than thirty minutes, we will probably enter the deep sleep stages. This explains why, when we take a long nap, we still feel tired after we wake up.

Ferrero explains that sleep cannot be accumulated. “You can’t sleep more hours for several days to sleep less hours the following days. Anyone who sleeps less time than necessary will have a sleep debt with their own body, which will become evident in their performance”, he assures. This explains the importance of naps as intermediate stages before night sleep.

The power of napping

In the United States, Dr. James Maas is the guru of the Power Nap. Many well-know companies such as Levi Strauss have started to adopt this technique by implementing nap lounges.

Foreseeably, Google did something about it too. Its facilities include dark, quiet rooms for the staff to take a rest. Thousands of kilometers away, in China, the “xiu-xi” (nap) is already a constitutional right. The Japanese went even farther and created capsule hotels with one-meter high rooms (not recommended for claustrophobics).

Let’s be honest: it’s not like companies do this out of kindness, but it’s been scientifically proved that daily thirty-minute naps bring positive results in worker’s performance.

According to Ferrero, taking a nap reduces stress and blood pressure, and enhances attention levels and memory. They’re also believed to prevent aging.

Hitting the sack

After visiting Rome, Eistein’s home and Alma Mula in Santiago del Estero, here I am, back in the city. I think my initial observations haven’t changed much, or actually haven’t changed at all. The sea of people doesn’t stop, and I can hardly imagine them checking into one of those capsule hotels. If Argentina was to enforce a right to nap like the Chinese did with the “xiu-xi”, a couple more important rights should be considered first. Adding comfortable sofas in companies looks a bit more viable, and I can already imagine the jokes between coworkers.

Notwithstanding all this, although some day someone might try to impose “siestas” or power naps on us as important scientific discoveries from foreign universities, we must know that we, Argentines, have always been fond of napping. The time and the place are up to each person, but the necessity to rest is irrefutable, culturally Argentine and biologically necessary.

It’s been a long day and I need to refresh my memory for the next article. It’s almost the sixth hour, so it’s time for a good nap.