Soft skills: The art of napping
Reclaiming rest as renewal, not laziness.
My love of the midday pause
It is well known among those who know me that I love to nap. It is quite common to find me taking a ten-minute reset before diving into another work session or a big research project. When I lived in Spain, I leaned fully into siesta culture, taking a short post-lunch nap in the hammock before my afternoon coffee and second round of work. It felt like rhythm: work, rest, play. Each part supporting the other. The more I surrendered to that balance, the more I noticed how everything, focus, creativity, even joy, flowed better when rest was part of the design rather than an afterthought.
Yet rest is something we still struggle to see as valuable. We live in a world that celebrates busyness and treats full calendars and constant motion as signs of importance. Being in demand can feel like proof of worth, while slowing down can stir guilt or fear of falling behind. We resist rest because it looks like idleness, and in a culture built on performance, stillness can feel risky. But exhaustion steals far more time than a nap ever will. Rest is not the opposite of productivity; it is what makes productivity human.
Reframing rest
It can feel almost radical to rest when the world tells you to keep pushing. We often think of rest as something to be earned, a reward at the end of achievement. But rest is actually the foundation that makes achievement possible. A good nap does not just soothe the body, it resets the mind. It gives your nervous system permission to recalibrate so you can return to life with more focus and presence. I have learned to see rest as an investment, not a luxury. A twenty-minute nap can transform an afternoon, just as a day of genuine rest can shift an entire week.
There is an art to doing nothing. Somewhere between caffeine, deadlines, and glowing screens, we forgot how to stop without guilt. The nap, once a child’s instinct, became a luxury we think we must earn. Yet when you lie down in the middle of the day, you are doing something quietly radical: you are listening. You are trusting that it is safe to stop.
As The School of Life once described, even joy can overwhelm us, just as it does a baby who has had too much excitement and simply needs a nap. The brain needs quiet time to process and digest experience before life feels manageable again. Adults are no different; a nap is not avoidance, it is integration.
The science behind short naps
Science agrees that short naps have powerful effects. A power nap of 10 to 30 minutes lowers cortisol, steadies the heart rate, restores attention, and lifts mood. NASA found that a 26-minute nap improved alertness by 54 percent. Research from the University of Michigan showed that after a 60-minute midday nap, people were less impulsive and had greater tolerance for frustration than those who watched a nature documentary instead. It is generally agreed that twenty minutes is optimal, long enough to enter light sleep but short enough to avoid the grogginess that can follow deep sleep.
Creating your own rest ritual
Rest looks different for everyone. For some, it is a short nap between meetings; for others, it is an hour of stillness, a walk, or simply lying on the couch watching light move across the room. What matters is the intention, creating a small ritual that lets the nervous system reset.
Find a quiet pocket of the day. Turn off notifications. If you can, place one hand on your heart, one on your belly, and take three long exhales. Whisper to yourself, “I allow myself to rest.” Close your eyes and drift without forcing sleep. Let your body decide how deep to go. When you wake, stretch and notice how your energy has shifted.
If the classic twenty-minute nap is not your thing, although I highly recommend giving it a try, there are many other ways to invite rest into your day.
The Desk reset – Close your laptop, rest your head on folded arms, and focus on slow breathing for ten minutes.
The Nature glance – Step outside, close your eyes, feel the air on your skin, and breathe deeply for five cycles.
The Savasana break – Lie flat on the floor, palms open, eyes closed, and let your body release tension for ten minutes.
Rest does not have to look the same every day. If you work from home, try a short nap after lunch and notice how much lighter the afternoon feels. If weekends are your only quiet moments, see if there is joy to be found in a nap on the couch between morning plans and the evening. It is less about perfection and more about listening to your body, your day, your cycle, your season, and finding what works for you.
Cycles, seasons, and feminine flow
In autumn and winter the body asks more softly for warmth and slowness. A midday nap mirrors nature’s rhythm: trees shedding, soil replenishing, light fading earlier. Rest invites us to soften into a more cyclical way of being, one that honours ebb and flow instead of constant output. In a world that rewards urgency and linear progress, rest becomes a deeply feminine form of power - receptive, intuitive, and regenerative. It reminds us that creation needs gestation, that stillness and action are part of the same rhythm, and that when we rest, we are not withdrawing but preparing to re-enter it with depth, intention and renewed energy.
An invitation to pause
Rest can be, or can feel like, a privilege. Not everyone has the environment, time, or inner permission to rest when they need to. But when we begin to see rest and restoration as essential rather than optional, we open the door to small, realistic moments of renewal. A nap might be just ten minutes between meetings, a quiet pause before the evening, or a simple breath break to reset the nervous system.
When we stop seeing rest as lazy and start seeing it as life’s rhythm, we begin to honour what we truly need. So the next time your body feels heavy mid-afternoon, see what it feels like to not push through. Soften. Pull a blanket over your shoulders, close your eyes, and remember: you are nature, not a machine.
