Power napping: Day 11 - the caffeine nap

About a week ago Brad Issac had an article up on his web site titled How to Take A Caffeine Nap - and the timing was a bit uncanny with my own experiments with napping and power napping.

So today I tried combining my power nap with a shot of caffeine.

To put things in perspective, I’m not a big consumer of caffeine. I drink the occasional diet soft drink or iced tea, and very little coffee. My drink of choice is ice-cold water.

So today when I sat down for my power nap, I preceded it with a “Biggie” diet Coke from Wendy’s, and tried to get restful and relaxed.

One thing that really struck me was how vivid the images in my mind were - even more than usual. I never felt like I was completely asleep - I teetered right on that edge between sleep and wakefulness - but the images were very vivid and “real” and the thoughts just seemed to flow and swirl around in my head.

I had a bit of grogginess when I first roused myself, but it’s been about 15 minutes since my nap and I feel completely alert and fully rested. I’m not ready to attribute the experience fully to the caffeine after just one experience, but today’s nap was certainly a different experience than my previous naps.

I think some more experimentation with caffeine and napping is required, but after just one go at it I feel like there is something to the idea. If you’re into napping, you might want to give a caffeine nap a try yourself!

Add comment February 17th, 2006