DayMindXPression is a writing repository by Daniel Shin. The online magazine focuses on various subjects that come to mind. As a place to publish various essays and articles, Day Mind XPression and its content are copyrighted.
© 2007 – 2008 Daniel Shin
As a college student, I have been struggling to fight a series of doziness from “food coma” to normal sleep deprivation. Under these conditions, it is very difficult to concentrate on class assignments, especially long readings, because my mind wonders off to another world after reading a paragraph or two.
Some life hacking blogs have suggested in taking micro-naps, from five to thirty minutes, to get a burst of energy. This technique did not work for me, because I usually sleep beyond an hour if I decide to take a power nap.
The problem with my daily schedule is that I get extremely exhausted mentally after attending four hours of class. I used to surf on the web or do other non-work activities to replenish by mental energy, but I was usually left with being more tired and exhausted.
After several experiments, I have found my best way in getting the serious dose of concentration. After classes, I usually take hour or two long naps. The duration is longer than most micro-naps, but I think increasing the nap time to a few hours is more effective than trying to squeeze amount of rest in a few minutes.
After getting a satisfying amount of rest, I am usually able to do some serious reading or other mentally demanding work. My day is usually full of work, so I try to divide the work interval with a long nap rest in between to get the best productivity.
One side effects of having long naps is the potential for disrupting your sleep cycle. After doing long naps for several days, I began to sleep later than usual. Is this a troubling development? Not for me. As long as I can keep my productivity up, I am fine working in an altered schedule.
[Image Credit to vikush]
