The season of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Eve always provides plenty of opportunities to practice the art of sleep-especially now that we are buckling under the weight of the pandemic. The longest year of our lives has come to an end, the culmination of the winter holidays that you spend with your family – or don’t spend because you don’t want to endanger your family’s health.
2021 was not an easy year, and in order to build up our strength, push it out the door, and get it out of our minds as soon as possible, we especially need a healthy night’s sleep. We’re going to need all of our energy in 2022, so don’t miss the chance to recharge… in the horizontal position!
But how and where should you sleep? The options are many, and while not every one of them is available to us right now, they are all important to analyze and evaluate; one day the world will return to normal, and when it does, we will undoubtedly need more rest from it than ever. Ditch your boots and delve deep into reading the exhaustive rankings of the best ways to take a nap.
0. Sleeping with your couple
It’s a real art to sleep with your spouse. On one hand, you have to enjoy the process. On the other hand, you should have enough sleep to recover. It’s impossible to sleep with another person when you have a bad mood. But, if you know how to enjoy that moment, it’s the most romantic night of your life. For this reason, you should have a proper bed that would guarantee you comfort. A bed that can be used by two persons must have at least 6 feet wide and 6 feet long. It’s the perfect size for the couple. Also, sleeping in a couple involves cuddling and snuggling. If you like to cuddle with your spouse, you should definitely check the mattresses made specifically for this purpose.
1. Going to the movies with my parents over the winter holidays.
This kind of nap is an old habit of mine, which has been a pleasant annual tradition even before movie theaters were transformed into comfortable living rooms, the seats had recliners, and audiences were able to order chicken fingers and chardonnay right into the auditorium. The big, important movies with Oscar aspirations — pictures you can go to with your parents without worrying that they’ll lose interest or you’ll have to introduce them to the latest trends in sex — usually come out in December and go to the theater next door all Christmas holidays. By the end of the second act, when my nerves have already relaxed to the John Williams soundtrack, the chocolates are finished, and Meryl Streep and/or Tom Hanks have silently, frowningly made a decision that gives a boost to act three, I begin to peck my nose. Fighting sleep is beyond me. If I’m lucky, it turns out that my mother and I dozed off at different times and will be able to compare what we saw on the way home. That’s what I’m going to miss the most this year.
2. Weekday afternoons.
Lately, the luckiest of us have been working from home, which means (unless deadlines or zealous bosses are looming over them), to one degree or another, we make our own schedule. As someone who has been working on her own schedule for many years, I responsibly declare: A telecommute gives you freedom. You will not be fully released from business, but you do not have to go into work with your head down, too. Properly distributing business meetings, you can get out for a long jog in the middle of the day, watch “The Drew Barrymore Show” on TV, and most importantly, with a clear conscience, pass out after lunch. No one would know, and in twenty minutes the work wouldn’t go anywhere. That precious sleep is worth fighting for. If we show firmness at the end of the pandemic, we will be able to force employers to squeeze siesta into the work schedule, and there will become the norm and a couple of glasses of wine at lunch.
3. In a cushy chair by the fire with a newspaper in your lap.
This is a special Sunday treat. You may not have afforded it before, but mark my words: one day you too will have a favorite easy chair, just like your daddy. Maybe you’ll move into a house with a fireplace. Have you noticed that we hardly ever look away from our screens? You should consider subscribing to your local newspaper and/or the New York Times. When the stars rise appropriately – especially if it happens in winter when the sun goes down an hour afternoon – be sure to fall asleep by the crackling fireplace in your arms with your half-solved crossword puzzle, resting your plaid-covered feet on the ottoman with your faithful dog by them. This old man’s habit suits all ages.
4. After the Holiday Dinner
But don’t you remember the most famous way to get a good night’s sleep? A good night’s sleep after a heavy holiday meal has become an American cliché for a reason because it is the most inevitable and one of the most pleasant ways to take a break. About thirty minutes after you’ve cracked open your third drink, your eyelids begin to get heavy. Your tongue begins to slurp. You look around the living room for a soft surface. And then it just happens. You are attacked by sleep. Over the years, I’ve become so adept at falling asleep after eating my fill that I can pull this trick any time of year just by putting rugby on the TV. Whether it’s tryptophan or just muscle memory, it’s not Christmas or Thanksgiving you’ll still go sour in public, and there’s nothing to resist it. If your family, meanwhile, continues to celebrate at full throttle, someone will cover you with grandma’s wool plaid while you’re out, and you’ll wake up full of complex carbs and love of neighbor.
5. Before Dinner.
Where such a dream will lead to, there’s no telling. If in this unpredictable year you made it safely to the Christmas holidays, then you have worked hard and can celebrate. You should run across the finish line like you do at marathons. Alas, that is not possible, because the people who could have held it for you are also sitting at home. Instead, I suggest you spit on the inhibitions and blink forty times – you have the right to take an hour’s nap, even if you haven’t done anything useful all day. Make up your mind! The inner voice telling you that you don’t deserve a nap is the voice of shame, the angry nun in your head, appearing to give you a scolding whenever you feel you are worthy of joy or care. Send her away and allow yourself a little pleasure.
6. In the car.
Recommended for passengers only. Look, we all go on long car trips with the best of intentions, promising to entertain our loved ones and friends, shift at the wheel and keep up small talk. But the highway runs monotonously toward us, cows and roadside pubs whiz by, and our eyes begin to slip. Don’t resist the embrace of Morpheus, lean your head against the cool glass of the window, close your eyelids in the middle of the fourth track on your playlist, and open them again on the ninth. It is natural, unavoidable, and the driver, to be honest, is tired of you anyway.
7. No frills in your bed.
The more the winter holidays pick up steam, the stronger the temptation to throw everything and go to bed right in broad daylight becomes. Don’t give in: There’s something unhealthy about sleeping in your own bedroom during the day, and it’s not the right year for it either. If you are lucky enough not to get sick, behave appropriately – fall asleep on the couch.
8. Poolside.
Even the best chaise lounges aren’t too comfortable. You cannot get very comfortable on them and if you are the sort of person who doesn’t mind showing off your negligee in front of people, I admire your directness, but it’s alien to me. If you are like me, all you have to do is to assume a fully horizontal position, holding a book or a magazine in your arms outstretched toward the summer sky while the rungs of the chaise lounge leave streaks on your back. After rereading the same page three times, you are likely to give up and simply fall asleep. You’ll have to slather on three layers of sunscreen, you’ll sweat and you won’t get a good night’s sleep, but there is a certain Californian glamour to this method of rest. The option is acceptable.
9. Disco Snooze
If you feel like laying down between eight and eleven on a Saturday night so you can go to a club and dance through the morning, be warned: you’re walking on thin ice. To pull this off, you have to be able to not only interrupt the cooking without ruining dinner, but you also have to be able to stay awake until noon on Sunday. In my opinion, such sleep is useless and problematic. Better to stay up all night, squeeze every last drop out of Saturday night, and return home to a warm bed when your legs refuse to hold you and/or the bartender refuses to serve you. If the popular wisdom that nothing good happens after midnight is true, it’s also true that nothing legitimate happens after nightclubs close. Disco sleep leads to deviant behavior, and, as you should know by now, going wild can happen at a more decent time of day.
10. In a hammock.
In practice, this kind of sleep always turns out to be worse than in theory. The weather must be right: sunny but not too sunny, fresh but not cold, and preferably to hear the surf. But if you doze off in a hammock on the beach, you’re asking for sunburn, and if it’s been dewy or raining recently, all the moisture will accumulate at the lowest point of your bed, right where your butt rests. By the time you notice it, it will be too late: by that time your bottom will be soaked through and you will resemble a diapered baby. Is it worth saying that if this very hammock is woven from macramé, you will have ligature marks on your back and legs? In our culture, the hammock is considered synonymous with easy living, the Dagwood Bumsteadian (Dagwood Bumstead is a character in the popular comic strip “Blondie,” a lazy man who likes to snuggle in a hammock.) a symbol of rural bliss, but it’s time to put it behind us. We have couches. We pass.
(The exception is sleeping in a hammock in the fall – in a thick sweater, under the sun-spotted canopy of trees in the backyard, next to the fallen leaves raked in a pile. It really is a rare, uncommon pleasure.)