General Chat

with a nap.
-Carrie Snow


From "Romancing the Ordinary: A Year of Simple Splendor" by Sarah Ban Breathnach:

In our defense, may I just point out that probably one of the reasons you're at the breaking point is that you're exhausted. Beatrix Potter described feminine fatigue as being "worn to a raveling," and I don't know a woman today who isn't sleep-deprived and threadbare. In fact, we're not just sleep-deprived, we're sleep-abused. Often, a woman's fatigue is more emotional than it is physical; like a toxic relationship, it's impossible to remedy before the acknowledgement of the problem or pain.

There's something pleasant about the kind of physical tiredness that comes after an afternoon of cleaning closets or planting rosebushes, but emotional exhaustion is so debilitating, no amount of sleep at night seems to revive you. What's more, emotional exhaustion is laced with enough distress and desperation to poison you slowly but not kill you off...
To be born a woman is to be chosen to nurture; calming the fears of our family and friends is a feminine prime directive. We accept it, even enjoy it. But that doesn't mean we aren't often exhausted by it. Every time we reassure another that it will be all right, we automatically try to figure out how we can be the one to make it so. Have you any idea of how much a ton of "there, there" weighs? This isn't to say that we should turn our backs on the very real needs of our loved ones...but we should at least give ourselves permission to redistribute the weight so that we can carry it more easily.

This revelation came to me after I found the courage to take a nap in the midst of a day that was overwhelming me. "You become courageous by doing courageous acts," Mary Daly tells us. "Courage is habit." And sometimes it comes wrapped in a blanket in the middle of the afternoon.

Many women would find it easier to admit to having sex in a phone booth with a complete stranger than to napping. "Adult napping should not have a bad connotation..." William C. Dement, M.D., a pioneer in sleep medicine, explains in The Promise of Sleep. "Naps can make you smarter, faster and safer than you would be without them. They should be widely recognized as a powerful tool in battling fatigue, and the person who chooses to nap should be regarded as heroic."

Because I work from home, I've long used naps as a creative tool. If I find myself blocked and unable to write, I lie down, close my eyes, and see myself "reading" the piece I'm trying to write. Invariably, within fifteen minutes to half an hour, I start envisioning a few sentences of the piece I'm working on...Feeling refreshed, I'm eager to resume work. For a long time, I thought unraveling a creative block through napping was an embarrassing peccadillo. Then I discovered that Johannes Brahms regularly napped at the piano...some of history's most successful and formidable individuals were dedicated nappers: Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, John F. Kennedy.

The Defence rests.

I just had the above sent me in a circular mail.
It is so true.

Lizx

Thanks for this ,Liz, I have a nap almost every day,

Does me a power of good, but I am fortunate at
my age I can!! have agood day.

Jean x

Thanks Jean,
I doze off for half an hour or so, most evenings between 9 and 11 ish, which is my equivalent of mid afternoon, given that I don't usually get up till midday or later, having gone to bed at 5am ish. I live in a topsy turvy world lol
Lizx

Thanks Liz, if I drop off after my cup of tea this afternoon, watching the telly.......then I have this excuse to fall back on.......lol....

......another thing I have found......if I wake in the night and troubled by something that has happened.......why is it that in the morning it all seems so trivial........why does the daylight bring calmness on otherwise turbulent thoughts.....?....

thanks Liz......hope you are well.....x sally

Hi Sally, I think the answer to your question is that in daylight hours we can call someone to talk, or do something about the problem perhaps, by making a call or visit, but at night in the dark, when everyone else (except me lol) is asleep, you feel lonely and no one to talk things over with.

Mind you don't spill your tea when you snooze, Sally. I am ok thanks, fed up with the weather tho. wet, and windy here in Norwich, yet again.
take care
love
Lizx

You are most probably right Liz......all I know is it is never as bad as it might seem in the night.....

......and Liz, I always manage to finish my tea before I drop off.....lol

LOl Mac...........she'll be glad to be back when she reads all her lovely names:O)

you can't beat forty winks,recharges the batteries!

Well........who's counting?........enjoy them anyway,hope you're feeling better
Mau xx

And I've just had a kip reading the boards!!!! No not
yours Liz but it did seem a bit apt!!!!!
Jill
x

pmsl

Poor Mac, and I wasn't around to respond, no wonder he is feeling poorly, rejected like that lol

I wasn't having forty winks, but had to go as o.h. was due home and he hates me being on here when he is around.
Lizx

My mother and her mother used to both go to bed after lunch and sleep for a couple of hours. I usually feel very sleepy after lunch, but if I go to bed I dont want to wake up. I think my brain is saying 'you are in bed, you should sleep for 8 hours'. So I lie down on the settee and can usually wake up refreshed in an hour.
Dad used to often have 40 winks after lunch. He would lie on the floor behind his desk. One day a new office girl came in to his office and just about had a heart attack, thinking he had had one.
When I am in town for the day and evening (choir practice) I often lie down on the bench seat of our ute for a sleep. I take a pillow with me to make myself comfy. If I dont get that sleep I am yawning all through choir practice.
Huia.

Good for you Huia. I tend to nod off and then wake and get a second wind! Always have done that, if I go to bed when I start to nod, I wake up later and have to get up cos I can't get back to sleep. I think a lot of it is the gas fire altho it is safe as we have a carbon monoxide alarm in the room, just that it makes it stuffy. No central heating here so a funny house to be in, sort of open plan in lounge/stairs and a draught cuts through from the patio doors in kitchen/diner to sitting room unless you have the door closed tight, then it gets even more stuffy. Not my house, o.h's choice, not really my cup of tea at all.
Lizx