Snooze Spots and Power Naps to Survive Cubicle Life

There was an excellent article by Anne Kadet on the online Wall Street Journal/New York site. The title was "Scoping Out Snooze Spots."  Evidence shows that our abilities/sensitivities are impaired when we don't get enough sleep, but our culture honors and rewards those who skip the necessary daily requirement.  According to the article, "the New York Post approvingly reported on so-called short sleepers—New Yorkers such as Martha Stewart and NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan, who get by on four hours a night."

 So where can you snooze? Home is becoming increasingly difficult. Where are the kids? What activity are they at? Who is on a conference call with people in different time zones? If you travel for business, how well do you sleep on planes? I love the suggestions of the articles author:

"The Rose Main Reading Room at the New York Public Library turned out to be a better suggestion. Yes, it's against the rules to sleep there, but then why is it so lovely and hushed, with softly glowing table lamps and carved wooden chairs? The best spot: the three-row "laptop-free zone" in the back. Hardly anyone sits there. I plucked a fat book off the shelf ("History of the US Navy, Volume I") and pretended to study while I enjoyed a quick snooze. Bliss.

I can also vouch for the mattress stores. Don't bother with Sleepy's: The bright lights and pushy salespeople make sleep impossible. Instead, try Duxiana, on Broadway. There's a private chamber in the back, where, a store manager once told me, customers often doze off.

Another option: the expansive and dimly lit fifth-floor Mattress Gallery at Bloomingdale's. I once spent two hours there testing the wares, and the sales clerk never objected. Still, a Bloomingdale's spokeswoman insists that the gallery isn't for nappers. A better place for a break, she says, is at the store's "five fantastic restaurants, four of which also serve cocktails."

 
Let's face it, there are no perfect solutions.  When my wife and I were adopting our daughter from China, someone raised the question about how long after the trip they would stop feeling tired.  The answer was about two weeks after their daughter left for college.

I do love Anne's closing paragraph:
"A mid-day bender sounds tempting. But in the end, I found that the best place to take a nap was under my desk, George Costanza style. We have an open office, with zero privacy and overhead TVs. But once I had barricaded myself behind the trash and recycling bins, things felt nice and cozy. I forgot to set my timer and wound up taking a 90-minute snooze. When I woke, it was almost quitting time. The best part? Naps are twice as nice when everyone around you is working."

Cubicle dwellers need to be particularly creative.  Who's watching?