The World Needs a Nap: How Societal and Personal Health Can Benefit From Extra Sleep

Today's society is so fast paced that people hardly slow down long enough to breathe let alone sleep. Many people get up before the sun rises and are working until late in the night. This is not good for the body and it is not good for the world.

Sleepiness can cause a lot of problems. It is the cause of many car accidents. Tiredness also often makes people cranky and short tempered. This in turn causes many arguments and fights. Being cranky due to lack of sleep can often cause people to make bad decisions that they would not make if they were well rested and therefore not in a bad mood.

It could be that the world needs a nap. If everyone on the entire Earth just took a nap it might make the world a happy place. Everyone would at the very least feel a little better. If everyone took a nap everyday it would even be better. Tired people are often rash and unthinking.

There is actually some evidence that shows that the human body needs to nap in the afternoon. This evidence included the tendency of both infants and the elderly to take naps in the middle of the day. There are even some cultures that taking afternoon naps is actually a part of their culture.

There is also some biological evidence to support sleep reaseacher's belief that we naturally need naps during mid-afternoon. At this time there is a slight drop in body temperature. There is also a feeling of sleepiness that occurs around mid-afternoon. This is accompanied by a decrease in mood and alertness. This decrease in turn causes poorer performance at this time and at the same time there is also an increase in sleepiness-related car accidents.

There are two peaks over the course of a 24 hour period for deaths from car accidents. The higher of these two peaks is somewhere in the middle of the night when people are often the most tired and need the most sleep. The other peak however is during mid-afternoon. It is surmised that these peaks are due to the decrease of alertness due tiredness.

Researchers of mid-afternoon napping have found that even merely a short nap of 10 minutes will help increase alertness, mood and work performance. This is especially true if a person has had a poor night's sleep. However, even those who have gotten a great night's sleep can also benefit from a mid-afternoon nap.

The world needs a nap and not just today but everyday. If we all took a nap everyday we would be happier, more alert and would perform better at our jobs. Who knows, perhaps the reason we haven't found a cure to AIDS or cancer is because we need a nap to clear the mind and help us think better. That's a little far fetched but it demonstrates the basic idea that the world would be better off if everyone would just take a little nap every afternoon.