I can’t nap. I get really miffed with people who can. M, for example, has the astounding ability to turn off at any point of the day, nap for anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours, and bounce up refreshed and happy. On the rare occasions when I nap, I feel like I’ve been dragged backwards through a hedge when I awake, and I just can’t pull it together for the rest of the day. In fact I often get a headache, feel nauseous, and stumble around in a wretched mood until I can get my eight hours.

Napping sounds wonderful, though, doesn’t it? People who can pull it off talk about how rejuvenated they feel. I’ve experienced it myself on the rare occasion when I can get a serious 20 minute nap. That’s because for most people, 20 minutes is the magic number. Past that point, you’re likely to fall into REM (deep) sleep, and you need to go through a whole sleep cycle, which will cause insomnia that night. If you try to wake yourself at a bad point during your sleep cycle, you’ll feel off. Obviously you want to set an alarm to wake yourself, but what if you don’t fall asleep right away? What if it takes you twenty minutes to drift off?

So what we need is a sleep timer. Its quite simple, it consists of three parts that already exist. Continue reading →