There is a nap revival going on, and I’m 100% behind it. I blogged about it in recent months. See “Rest Revisited…and I mean naps.” I’m just back from China and my sleep is disrupted, and I’m feeling it acutely. I have always enjoyed afternoon naps. They are a luxurious privilege that not everyone has access to. I associate them with leisure, vacations, and weekends. When I’m at work, there is no nap time. 

And not all people have access to leisure, vacations, or even weekends (in the sense of time off).  There is definitely a class issue around naps — if you’re working multiple jobs to pay the bills, chances are you don’t have a lot of time for naps even though you might be sorely in need of them. Napping is indeed a social justice issue.

Besides the simple value of sufficient rest, naps have cognitive and health benefits. According to this article, new research shows that “a nap can help with how we process and react to information.”  The researchers reported that their study “indicated that sleep was responsible for inducing improvement in tasks that were processed unconsciously.” So there’s that benefit.

I also recently read an article on wired.com about the health impact of consistent sleep deprivation. Apart from making us less cognitively capable than we might otherwise be, sleep deprivation makes us: “more forgetful, unable to learn new things, more vulnerable to dementia, more likely to die of a heart attack, less able to fend off sickness with a strong immune system, more likely to get cancer, and it makes your body literally hurt more. Lack of sleep distorts your genes, and increases your risk of death generally, [neuroscientist Matthew Walker] said. It disrupts the creation of sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone, and leads to premature aging. Apparently, men who only sleep five hours a night have markedly smaller testicles than men who sleep more than seven.” So it’s not good for the health on many levels.

And yet our fast-paced world glorifies over-busy lives and minimal sleep. This is why my most favourite message these days is from The Nap Ministry’s Facebook page.  They have a website too. This is not simply a group that promotes naps as good for your physical and mental health. Based in Atlanta and founded by nap bishop Tricia Hersey, they see naps as a form of resistance.

Their mission statement exudes hope for a new way of living, with naps as a form of resistance against sleep deprivation and the glorification of the capitalist consumer machine that chews us up and spits us out. The statement says:

The Nap Ministry is a community organization that examines the liberating power of naps. We use the power of performance art, poetry, installation, public performance interventions and community art making to illuminate the artistic, spiritual and creative power of rest. It reimagines why rest is a form of resistance and shines a light on the issue of sleep deprivation as a justice issue. It is a counter narrative to the belief that we all are not doing enough and should be doing more. We are community centered. We are focused on radical self-care. Naps are a dream space that offers us a place to invent, create and heal. When we don’t nap, we miss out on precious creative time to hope and imagine. Hope is what will sustain us. Sleep will restore us.

Even better (and this makes me wish I lived in Atlanta or at least visited more often), “The Nap Ministry hosts Collective Napping Experiences that allow the community to experience a safe space that has been curated for rest.”

When people tell me they are too busy to rest…when I myself feel too busy to rest…I feel sad. When someone boasts about how little sleep they can function on, I raise a skeptical eyebrow. I mean, I realize that there is a lot in this wonderful world. And I realize that there are only so many hours in a day. But life is not just about consuming experiences and adding them to the collection. I like the idea of carving out time for rest. To be. To restore. To allow creative time. And to find other people who place value on that challenge to the dominant attitude of do-do-do as a marker of what it means to be a contributing citizen.

Do you nap for rest and if you do, does it feel like a guilty pleasure or a birth right?

My plans did not proceed perfectly. Perhaps I need more push-up practice?

Oh, I definitely need more push-up practice!

My aim for this month was to do my push-up routine three times a week and to use my pretty chart to keep track.

That didn’t exactly work out.

Challenge #1: I lost my fun chart.

It’s hard to use something for motivation if you can’t find it! After taking the index card chart out of my planner to snap the photo, I must have put it ‘somewhere safe for now.’  Spoiler: it may be safe but apparently it wasn’t just ‘for now.’

Not having my chart wasn’t that big a deal but it was annoying. I could have made another one but some part of me insisted that I would find it any second now so I couldn’t bring myself to recreate it. (Yes, I do know how foolish that was.)

Challenge #2: Our new dog started sleeping on my bed

That doesn’t sound like it would affect my practice but I am not actually clinging to just any old excuse here.

In early March, we got a dog. Khalee is 5 years old and, despite my allergies, I’m charmed by her. I want her to be happy and comfortable in our house so when she decided that I was her alpha and that she should sleep near me, I didn’t want to object.

What I didn’t realize was that my sleeping self is over-courteous towards the dog. Apparently, in my efforts not to disturb the dog during the night, I was staying ridiculously still.

Sleeping in one position is NOT ideal for my hips and back.

So, I spent one week of April with my back in knots and I couldn’t actually do any push-ups at all until my back smoothed out.

Challenge #3: Push-ups apparently irritate my wrist

Remember how I broke my wrist last year?

Well, even though it has healed very well, there are apparently some movements that still cause me a bit of grief. Push-ups are apparently one of them.

I’ve spent quite a bit of the month with an aching wrist and a slightly swollen hand.  That is not something that adds to your motivation to do push-ups.

Challenge #4: I was busier than I expected to be this month

I thought I was setting myself up for success by picking specific times to do my push-ups.

However, through a stroke of luck, I picked up some extra writing and coaching work and that work affected both my schedule and my available energy.

So, what did all of that mean for my push-up plans?

Well, despite all of those challenges, I still did pretty well.

My plan was to do my routine 12 times in April. I did it 7.

That’s pretty good, especially considering how many things got in my way!

And, the best part?

When I was late for Taekwon-Do class one night,* I had to do 10 push-ups before I could join the class.

I did them from my knees but the 10 push-ups were pretty easy.

And, for some of them, I felt actual ease. I felt new power in my arms. There was actual fluidity in my movements.

It was encouraging, to say the least.


What’s next?

I’m going to keep following my plan into May with the following adjustments:

1. I’m going to put my chart directly into my planner – not on a separate sheet.
2. I have already shifted where the dog is allowed on the bed, so I’ll keep that up.
3. I’m adding some wrist stretches to my bedtime routine
4. I’m going to do my push-ups while I wait for the kettle to boil/my tea to steep at some point during my day. I make multiple cups of tea daily and I usually do busy work while I wait. I’m going to pick one of those times and do my push-ups.

Did you try adding any push-ups in April? How did you do with it?

Do you want to join me for May?

*I wasn’t being disrespectful. On my way to class,  I saw a young woman on the side of the road struggling with a huge suitcase and I stopped to help her. She was a student, moving to a new apartment and trying to move all her stuff by walking it from her old place to her new one. I drove her and her suitcase to her new apartment but it did make me late.

I live less than two kilometres from where I work and given all the things I like to do and hope to do in the future (like biking around NFLD) you’d think a small thing like biking to work would be a choice I’d make. Nope. I really like biking and walking, especially when I’m walking my dog but you know what else I like? Sleeping. Sleeping is one of my most favourite activities, especially in the morning when I am not supposed to be sleeping. So often, in spite of my best intentions to wake up 15 minutes early (that’s all it would take), I press snooze and take my car.

I feel like part of what I’m doing with this post is publicly shaming myself for that. Most of my good friends and lots of my fellow bloggers bike, walk and run to work. It’s certainly the more “virtuous” thing. And also, we are human and we just don’t alway live up to our virtues. I’m cool with that, you should be too. However, I’m also aware that I have planned this really cool trip and I don’t want to die. Consistent biking around my town during the day would go some way to keeping me moving in useful and constructive ways. it will also make it easier for me to get out on the weekends for more substantial training. It’s all about the baseline. And yet and yet, nothing.

Sometimes the solution to persistent motivation problems is to create a “safe emergency” situation. Lucky for me, the opportunity presented itself this week. My delightful son, who has just completed his second year of uni, had dutifully got himself a job as a labourer at a farm. What we hadn’t really worked out was how he was going to get there. His day starts at 7am. Remember that I like sleeping more than biking, walking and getting up early. So, There was no way I was going to get up at 6:30 in the morning so I could drive that boy to work, just to drive my own self 2 hours later. I did what any good middle class mom would do, I gave up my car to my kid. Yes he is spoiled rotten, his work is only 10k away, he could be biking up there, but selfishly, I am not letting him bike. I’M biking! Even though I had to give up my car to get myself to do it.

It’s only day one and there are going to be more than a few days of exceptions when we will have to figure out something else. It only goes until June, conveniently, just before I leave for the epic trip. Maybe by then it will be a habit that I can stick with.

I’ve been traveling this week in China, thanking my lucky stars that my back has been well enough for me to manage the toilets.

In China, the typical toilet is a squat toilet. Not of course in the western style hotel rooms but certainly in most of the restaurants and in most of the university buildings I’ve had meetings in. In a public toilet with multiple stalls, there may be one stall with a regular toilet. Maybe. Not always. And the rest are squats.

When I faced the same in India recently it was more an “aesthetic” thing. I am accustomed to a regular toilet and squatting just isn’t my thing. I know, I know –apparently in many ways squatting is better for digestion, a more effective position.

But this time I’m aware of just how much physical agility it requires to squat to pee. You need to be able to plant your feet and lower yourself down without losing your balance. Pee. Wipe (assuming there is toilet paper or that you remembered to grab some from the communal dispenser on the wall out by the sinks or that you have your own as I always do). Then stand back up again without assistance and without losing your balance. Two weeks ago I’d have been completely unable.

For me it was temporary. I have no idea what people with knee issues or back issues or in wheel chairs or with other sorts of mobility issues do. Almost all of the squat toilet stalls have at least one step to get up to them (I don’t quite know why this is). None of the many I’ve been in this week has had a hand rail that would be useful for getting back up.

It’s a real issue. And not just aesthetic. And it makes me appreciate that at least for now I can manage because being able to use a toilet when out and about is one of the more important necessities of basic living.

I have not asked around about what people do if they have mobility issues and whether this is considered an equity issue. If it’s not, it should be, even if squatting is a more natural position for this sort of thing. It’s not available to all.

I usually end with a question but I’m not about to interrogate our readers about their squat toilet experiences!

From 2013-2017 I blogged pretty regularly at Feminist Philosophers. They’re closing their virtual doors and while I understand it’s making me sad. I went to “like” their recent post and accidentally reblogged instead. Here it is!

I just read that to get ready for her Coachella concert–now viewable in the Netflix doc Homecoming–Beyonce went on a super restrictive diet.

From the Queen Bee herself: “In order for me to meet my goals, I’m limiting myself to no bread, no carbs, no sugar, no dairy, no meat, no fish, no alcohol – and I’m hungry.”

Of course you’re hungry, honey. That is a lot to say “no” to. A lot. Especially considering the physically demanding nature of the work.

She acknowledges it involved sacrifice. And that’s Beyonce. A woman with a team of people helping her meet her goals. Now, I’ve seen the documentary and yes, she looks amazing. Strong and gorgeous. But bear in mind that it’s one night. It’s her job. She has help. She has a lot going for her genetically and aesthetically speaking to begin with.

The truth of the matter is that a diet involving that much deprivation is simply not sustainable.

We blog a lot about fad diets and diets in general. Most of our messaging is negative because most people do not manage to lose weight and keep it off for any reasonable length of time. It can be done. There are some weight loss unicorns. They mostly have had to make significant permanent changes and commit to a life of intensive activity. Even then, it is no guarantee because metabolic damage is a known side-effect of repeated dieting and the under-eating restrictive diets often prescribe.

Fad diets that take out whole food groups are tempting because yes, of course you’ll likely lose weight if you stop eating most of the things you regularly enjoy. But if it’s not sustainable as a permanent change (and the Beychella diet is not) then the rebound effect of gaining it back is extremely likely.

Instead of another fad diet, consider process changes that get you making healthy activity and food choices (like Sam’s ten fruits and veggies thing). These sorts of tweaks are sustainable and good for you regardless of whether you lose weight or don’t. You won’t be deprived. Instead of punishing yourself or trying to whip yourself into shape, process changes can actually be acts of self love.

This is not to deny the awesomeness of Beyonce or the real sacrifice she had to make to be “show ready.” But like fitness models (see “She May Look Healthy But…Why Fitness Models aren’t Models if Health”), the required prep regime is not a long term solution and isn’t even particularly good for you (or for Beyonce).

If you haven’t seen Homecoming, here’s a link to the trailer and you can catch the film on Netflix:

https://youtu.be/fB8qvx0HOlI