Thursday, October 12, 2006

Naps Kill Thousands - Bleary-Eyed People Flee Sleep In Panic.

(An angry aside. Sometimes blogger likes pictures, sometimes she doesn't. Today is a picture-hating day. Goddammit. So just imagine pictures of sleeping kitties, sleeping pups, the lyrics to I'm Only Sleeping, a sleeping bird, students sleeping, Asleep at the Wheel, napping in hammocks, a bear copping Zs in a tree and babies nodded out like they were on smack.

Yes, I found each and every one of these and tried to upload them until my head exploded. Now, thanks to blogger's bitchy refusal to cooperate, you've missed them. So it is you, the reader, who is again buggered by blogger. Fucking free piece of shit. We apologize.)

The story:

This morning, this column appeared in the Raleigh News and Observer. In it, Phil Woodhall, MD reports on a new study titled "The Risk of Napping: Excessive Daytime Sleepiness and Mortality in an Older Community Population."

In other words, naps can kill you. As our friends across the water might say, Fuck all.

He also quotes W. Vaughn McCall, director of the sleep laboratory at Wake Forest University, who says, "if you are asleep and taking a nap you can't be doing other things to improve yourself -- like exercising."

Or keying your Mercedes or sleeping with your wife, Doctor Buzzkill.

But Doctor Woodhall is having none of it, bless him. I would quote extensively from the column because it's funny, but the N&O has a big-ass copyright warning on their page and as you all know, I would never ever steal something copyrighted, not even a cute photo of bunnies sleeping in their cozy little hutch, so I'll just steal a little bit of it.

Here then, taken from Dr. Phil Woodhall's column are Good Naps and Bad Naps: A Handy Guide:

1. Any nap from which you fail to awaken is by definition a bad nap.
2. A nap taken despite spousal threat, e.g., "Let's paint this afternoon; no time for napping," is at minimum an unwise nap.
3. The defensive nap is used to combat boredom, for example, during a sermon about sins you don't normally commit. In this circumstance ... snoring can turn the defensive nap into a bad nap with serious social repercussions.
4. There are many automotive naps. The good nap is taken in any seat but the driver's. The risky nap is taken while a teenager is driving. The bad nap, which may become the fatal nap or the orthopedic surgery nap, is one taken while you are behind the wheel.

I'm no doctor, but my dogs and I have put in a great deal of study on this topic and we've concluded that a nap is nothing short of God's gift to the procrastinating writer. Next thing you know, they'll say vodka is bad for you, then where will we be?

I encourage you to read Dr. Woodhall's complete column. It's fun.

But not as much fun as a nap.

6 comments:

Sandra Ruttan said...

Yeah, try telling all of this to a nighthawk.

Daytime sleeping is essential.

Stephen Blackmoore said...

Any nap from which you fail to awaken is by definition a COMA.

Sleep is for the weak. The weak and the old.

Beneath the Carolina Moon said...

I've frequently found that blogger makes you upload the pic first, then put your text in, or it just won't take the pic. If I've already got my text in, I save it and open a new post to upload the pic into. Then, paste the code in the first post, or vice versa, and delete the new or other post. OKay, it's gooey (gooie?), but it seems to always work.

BTW, being no amateur napper myself, as my boss and employees can attest, I have, some how, managed to experience most of the bad naps in my lifetime and survived. I don't recommend amateurs try these at home or work for that matter.

Dread

Christa M. Miller said...

I was going to say that any nap from which you fail to awaken is by definition clinical death, but coma works too.

I say we round up all the first- and third-trimester pregnant chicks we can find and unleash the hormones on "Dr." McCall. We can deprive them all of their naps first. I am sure he will retract his study.

Anonymous said...

I have perfected the practice of napping anywhere. I have had naps at Caribou Coffee even through the sound of the grinder and espresso machine. I have also napped at the Blue Bayou and Blue Martini during 135 decibel blues music. John at the Blue Martini commented that I was the only one who napped during the song and then woke up at the break when it gets quiet. I am in training. I think I'll work on napping adjacent to construction sites and 5 alarm fires. I am mystified by this report. It may be a case of correlation mistaken for causation. Morons should not be allowed to wield statistics.

Anonymous said...

Good JOb! :)