As a kid, your parents might have scolded you for not taking a nap and playing around instead. You insist, with your young mind, that you seize every moment and no time should be wasting on afternoon naps. But in college, naps are holy. What used to be your punishment when you were young has become a reward when you became a young adult. But why is it still so hard to allot time just to get a short sleep?
Engineering students are bound to be full with academic work the entire college life. Despite the vacant times in between, there is little to no time for naps anymore because of the loads of work to do. This needs to change now: you can actually afford to spend a time off by taking a nap.
“The secret to becoming more productive is not managing your time but your energy.” That is what famous author Michael Hyatt said. He also claimed that Leonardo da Vinci took multiple naps a day and slept less at night; Albert Einstein napped each day other than the ten hours of sleep he gets at night; and Thomas Edison practiced napping as a daily ritual amid being embarrassed about it.
Here are five reasons why engineering students need to consider some serious naptime:
Restores alertness
Especially at times early in the afternoon, you need to take a nap to remove that feeling of sleepiness and restore focus and alertness. A 20- to 30-minute nap will improve alertness and performance without leaving you feeling groggy or interfering with nighttime sleep, according to the National Sleep Foundation.
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Prevents burnout
If you think you do not have to rest mid-day, you’re wrong. Your body and mind need some rest to remove the stress, frustration and burnout. Humans are not designed to take on daily work without rest. Nap if you can. You are an engineering student, also human.
Heightens sensory perception
This is science talking: napping can restore the sensitivity of sight, hearing, and taste, according to Dr. Sara C. Mednick, author of Take a Nap, Change Your Life. It also improves creativity by relaxing your mind and letting the juice separate from its residue.
Reduces the risk of heart disease
You also need to take care of your health. Napping is one way to do that. A 2007 study from Archives of Internal Medicine shows that those who take a midday siesta at least three times a week are 37 percent less likely to die of heart disease. The leader of the study, Dimitrios Trichopoulos of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, said that taking a nap could turn out to be an important weapon in the fight against coronary mortality.
Makes you more productive
Let me refresh your memory with Michael Hyatt’s above quote, “The secret to becoming more productive is not managing your time but your energy.” And this is through taking a nap. This is backed by a study from Harvard University in 2002, stating that a thirty-minute nap boosted the performance of workers, returning their productivity to beginning-of-the-day levels. You are an engineering student who needs to perform round-the-clock, so do yourself a favor and take a nap.
Some people will say that taking a nap is a sign of laziness. No. Those who do that are perhaps the smartest, and most productive people you will ever meet.
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