Snoozing and musing: why writers (desperately) need naps more than most

“You know what part I love about waking up? None of it. Let me nap!”

— RE:BOOKS

Are you a fan of naps? If not and you’re a writer, you should get on that because, guess what? Writers need more sleep than others. Science says so! 

First, let me introduce you to a special kind of nap: The Writer’s Nap.

I try to take a nap every day. The Writer’s Nap’s motto is, “I already want to take a nap tomorrow.” 

I love naps, and rightly so because it turns out my favourite daily hobby — napping — is a side effect of being a writer. Napping is, or should be, considered part of our job TBH.

Screw those who say I can get plenty of sleep when I’m dead, especially now that I’ve learned that many noteworthy authors have been plagued — for most of their lives — with sleep deprivation and insomnia. 

Yes, it’s a common thing among authors. So, you know what? I AM going to start telling the truth when people ask what I like to do in my spare time.

“Napping,” I shall say.

Finally, I know why I’m always — and have always been — exhausted and sleep-deprived to the point where I sometimes think, “You just need to take a nap for…the next four to five years.”

I’ve always loved sleeping, even as a child. When people converse or reminisce about the cartoons they watched growing up on weekend mornings, I have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. I have never had a cartoon theme song stuck in my brain. 

Even at six years old I preferred sleeping in. I hated sleepover parties because I hated the “how long can we stay up?” game, which, mind you, is as dangerous a game as “I’m just going to rest my eyes” after hitting snooze on your alarm clock.

So, now I’m leaning towards the notion that I was indeed born to be a writer, since it seems I was definitely born to nap. There is nothing I look forward to more than seeing My Guy sweet, sweet slumber. 

Many, if not most authors I know or have met both protect and desire their sleep more than their children diamonds.

When Philip Roth “retired,” he was interviewed in this interesting piece, “At 80, Philip Roth Reflects On Life, Literature and the Beauty of Naps,” where Roth discusses the extreme mental exhaustion of writing, to the point he had a Post-it note in his apartment that read "the struggle with writing is over.” He also said that since he was no longer writing every day, he’s savouring a gentler pleasure: naps.

"Let me tell you about the nap," he said. "It's absolutely fantastic. When I was a kid, my father was always trying to tell me how to be a man, and he said to me, I was maybe nine, and he said to me, 'Philip, whenever you take a nap, take your clothes off, put a blanket on you, and you're going to sleep better.' Well, as with everything, he was right.”

Then the best part of a good nap, said Roth, is that when you wake up, “for the first 15 seconds, you have no idea where you are. You're just alive. That's all you know. And it's bliss, it's absolute bliss."

I read about a biz professor and author who obsessively charts his hours of sleep on a spreadsheet to ensure he gets 70-75 hours of sleep every 10 days. If he doesn’t get these precious hours, he can still do things. But he cannot “create.” 

Every single morning for the last two decades, I lie in bed knowing it will be another day when my coffee will need a coffee.

Every single morning for the last two decades, I lie in bed trying to decide if it’s worth hitting snooze for the 18th time. 

Why? When you get out of bed, you have to participate in reality. And the same goes for napping. 

Science is telling writers to nap. SCIENCE, people. I don’t know about you, but I don’t take this kind of thing lightly. 

I strive for greatness, and that includes my naps. It could be the most beautiful sunny day, but I need my nap. And it could be the most beautiful weekend, but if my children aren’t with me, the only plans I make involve napping.

The fact is, my favourite activity — or, in the case of napping, lack of activity — is probably the best thing I could do for my writing.

So, writers, consider this your permission slip to take a nap!

“When I was working on a novel and didn’t work my ‘steady money job’ as I do now, I would write from morning until 2:00 p.m. then I’d take a nap,” commented one person on a writing community page. “During that nap, things would become clear to me of what I needed to change or alter or write in the novel. It was really cool! I’d get up from my nap and go in there and make that change or changes. Sometimes it was a tiny change, like a sentence I needed to remove, change, or put in.” 

Apparently, the immediacy of the nap makes all the difference. “I can have great ideas at night but forget them in the morning,” another writer commented. “Napping, however, has helped me fix character problems, plot holes and descriptions of the setting.”

Night sleep can do that too, but what makes a nap so powerful is that it’s more immediate. 

For many, if not all writers, insomnia is the worst part of, well, being a writer (aside from promoting, which I wrote about here). 

A huge shout-out to all of you who can get through a day without needing a nap. I’m totally envious, constantly pulling all-dayers. (Insert sleeping emoji here.)

For those of you relatives and good friends wondering why us authors need to nap, below is a near-perfect description of an author’s overhyped mind and why insomnia plagues a disproportionately high number of writers.

“For insomnia, like other features of a writer’s life, is a species of madness: a state in which the customary evasions of daylight consciousness give way to the demonic spectres of self-doubt and self-loathing. Often the inability to sleep arises not from a guilty conscience but from a conviction — perverse but unrelenting — of the utter inadequacy, falsity, and pointlessness of one’s energetic and desperately earnest daytime pursuits. For writers, already plagued by the elusive and slippery nature of language, such doubts are magnified a thousand-fold, and thus an ordinary night is transformed into the dark chamber where his worst anxieties and most lacerating humiliations are endlessly rehearsed.” —Greg Johnson in On the Edge of an Abyss: The Writer as Insomniac.

I used to believe napping was a decision. It turns out my need for naps is more akin to a prescription bottle’s instructions: “Take one nap, once a day, as needed. Don’t nap on an empty stomach or mix with grapefruit juice. Refills unlimited.”

In the article “Sleep and Writing: How Are They Connected?” it is shown how sleep is connected to writing in numerous ways; i.e., working through trauma, helping to express emotions, and improving our memory. According to scientists, sleep gives our memories a significant boost.

But falling asleep is one of the hardest most torturous things I’ve had to live with all my life, and probably will for the rest of it. 

I can’t do it — sleep — alone. No, I do not need another warm body beside me. I need medical intervention via a prescribed sleeping aid, which I have been on since…I don’t fucking know. I’m too tired to remember, but it's been years. (Yes, I’ve tried meditation apps. Yes, I’ve tried Melatonin and Magnesium. Yes, I exercise. Yes, I have blackout blinds and a noise machine. Yes, I do not consume caffeine after 2:00 p.m. Yes, I’ve seen sleep specialists; looking back, instead of checking off numerous questions, I should have just written “AUTHOR” in bold across the forms to sum up my sleep deprivation.)

I know, I know. Sleep aids are supposed to be a short-term solution. But when you’re a full-time writer, sleep is a long-term problem, so my prescription sleeping aids are the longest short-term solution, since there will never be a solution. Let’s just say the phrase, "I’m going to sleep on it” takes on an entirely different meaning for writers and authors. 

When I lie in bed in hopes of a glorious nap, I can’t stop thinking about all the things I need to do, or just random ideas. My hyperactive mind turns into an involuntary solo brainstorming meeting.

But sometimes, though rarely, I will manage to take a nap that is so glorious that I have no clue whether it’s morning or night when I wake up. (Thank you, blackout blinds!) 

The need authors have for napping may be the most common characteristic of the modern writer, especially in this batshit crazy world, increasingly marked by more violence, more chaos, more racism, more anti-semitism — all of which I take personally.

After finishing one massive writing project, I slept a full 48 hours straight, missing an…entire weekend! Swear. On. My. Exhausted. Life!

I woke up and had no idea what time, day, month, or even whose bed I was in. (Mine.)

It felt fucking fantastic. Napping is the one profound (and often unattainable) desire of most creative types, including yours truly.

“I learned about napping and writing from a mentor,” wrote one writer on a comment board. “We are extremely efficient writers in the morning, then as the day goes along, not so much. But after a nap and then the same routine of wake up, brush teeth, and have a cup of coffee, our brains are reset and we can start again.”

In other words, a two-for-one writing day! Sign me up. (Give me a sec. Just setting my alarm for 1:30 this afternoon to remind myself to brush my teeth and put on body lotion!)

“Even more than paranoia, envy, or rampant egotism, a vulnerability to insomnia might well be the trait most commonly shared by serious writers throughout literary history, regardless of their personal temperament, aesthetic program, or country of origin,” says Greg Johnson in “On the Edge of an Abyss: The Writer as Insomniac. 

Although this article was written in 1990, it still holds true — I do not know of one author who isn’t cursed hasn’t or doesn’t suffer from exhaustion or insomnia, which Johnson describes as “a hellish torment, a state of being in which the darker side of a writer’s consciousness — all his personal demons of loneliness and self-doubt — completely overwhelms him, leaving him spent and demoralized for the next morning’s work.”

Do you see why I’m so fucking tired? It’s all my demons!

Johnson begins his piece with, “D. H. Lawrence may have been speaking for the majority of his fellow authors in his poem ‘Sleep & Waking,’ that “nothing in the world is lovelier than sleep, / dark, dreamless sleep, in deep oblivion!” Johnson also writes, “Few writers have lived entirely free of insomnia, and it has struck not only those tormented, ‘neurotic’ artists for whom the inability to sleep might seem only one symptom of a more general emotional malaise.” 

Franz Kafka suffered greatly from insomnia; so did Charles Dickens before him. Sylvia Plath endured sleepless nights, too, as did William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman.

Elizabeth Gaskell, a friend and biographer of the Bronte sisters, said that Charlotte and Emily walked in circles around the dining room table until they were tired enough to sleep. (I, myself, count sheep when my head hits the pillow, but hey, I’m open to walking in circles around my dining room table.)

So, if you’re a writer and you’re reading this, I’m giving you a permission slip to start taking daily naps. It’s valuable to your career.

“… Studies have looked at the benefits of taking naps as well as sleeping through the night,” writes Joanne Cantor in “Sleep for Success: Creativity and the Neuroscience of Sleep.

Researchers say your brain becomes “very active” when you sleep, and that during certain phases of sleep, your brain becomes even more active if you've just learned something new. (Damn my addiction to watching TedTalks before falling asleep, which I wrote about here!)

My Guy asks me numerous times, “How was your sleep?” to which I normally answer, “No good, but I got a few hours of anxiety in and 18 story ideas.” 

Being a full-time writer is a greatly NON-refreshing occupation. When (or if) I finally manage to shut off my brain, it’s usually at 5:00 a.m. when the goddamn sun has already risen.

Many authors plagued with sleepless nights or an inexplicable urge to nap could be a sign of their authenticity as writers. (So, don’t forget to put “napping” down on your resume!)

Sometimes My Guy will ask me how long I think I’ll be napping for. Now, since I’ve learned that there is a correlation between writing and napping, I can honestly say, "It could be three hours or it could be three years. I have no idea, babe.” 

My sleep pattern goes something like me looking at my phone, seeing it’s 11:00 p.m. Then it’s suddenly 2:00 a.m. Then it’s 4:00 a.m. And the next thing I know, I'm looking at my phone to see that I have an entire 12 minutes before one of my three alarms goes off. And yet, I'm still trying to fall asleep — still hopeful, like playing a game of Nap roulette. It’s risky. I don’t set an alarm. Will I wake up in four hours or fail to nap at all?

This endless repetition occurs night after night, and pretty much sums up my life.

In one study on naps, researchers examined the napping preferences of 2,000 people and found nappers considered themselves more productive. Three-quarters of them also labeled themselves as career-driven compared to their non-napping counterparts. 

Confidence was higher in the napping group too, with 89% of nappers claiming to be confident compared to the 79% of those who didn’t nap.

If you’re interested in mining your dreams for writing ideas, deep sleep is essential. If you don’t reach the REM stage — a deep slumber — you won’t have any dreams to use for inspiration.

Dreams have fuelled countless stories and poems throughout history, making the ability to dream an essential tool for writers.

Stephen King is a fan of naps too, as he writes in, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. Maybe he was a fan of naps solely because he IS a writer. “In both writing and sleeping, we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives,” he wrote.

In The Writer’s Book of Hope: Getting from Frustration to Publication, author Ralph Keys wrote, "I find an afternoon nap is indispensable if I’m to accomplish anything after lunch. 

As journalist Pete Hamill once said, “Naps are a writer’s perk! “The replenishing thing that comes with a nap – you end up with two mornings in a day.”

I thought blogger Rhonda Douglas was pretty funny in laying out the 10-step process for taking a writer's nap. Douglas includes “The Pre-Nap Process,” “The Actual Writer’s Nap,” “The Post-Nap Process,” “The Writer’s Nap Agenda,” and “The Writer's Nap Guarantee.”

The Pre-Nap: “If you’re napping for general writing inspiration, then I want you to pick a book by an author you admire. Pick a new one, or one you’ve read before and you think is absolutely genius. I like to nap with poetry when I’m just napping for an inspirational boost, but any kind of book will work. Print it out and re-read your work. Get clear about the problem you’re trying to solve: how to structure the book, what to do next with this character. Only one very specific problem per nap! Essentially, you’re going to put your subconscious to work, and it works best when focused on one thing at a time,” Douglas wrote.

When it comes to The Writer's Nap Guarantee…

“I’ve been using the writer’s nap process to enhance and support my writing for years now. I routinely have an experience of creative breakthrough… New ideas come and I find my writing flows more easily.”

The author wants writers and authors to keep this a secret. (So, I didn't tell you this, k?) 

“Don’t tell the non-writers in your life about this; they won’t understand,” Douglas went on. “The creative process is hard for non-creative types to wrap their heads around and they’ll tend to think you were either ‘just’ napping or wasting time while they wrangled the children or housework for you.”

And on the rare occasion that I actually do successfully nap? Well, I wake up basically needing another one. I like to be proactive. Why should I stop two hours in? Why not four? What not five?

This article, “7 Reasons Why Writers Should Start Napping Today” delves into the many benefits of naps, explaining, “It is important, though, not to allow your naps to last too long. If you do, they can damage rather than enhance your health and creativity.”

Unfortunately, I can’t take 45-minute naps. It takes me at least 45 minutes to even get into nap mode, thanks to being afraid that the swirling chaos in my head will not allow me to fall asleep at all. I like my naps to be at least two hours (not including the two hours of prep time to get my brain into nap mode).

Many insomniac writers are actually fearful of sleep. Oh, how ironic that I am fearful of the very thing I love most in the world: my children sleep. Rather, the ability to be able to fall asleep. Authors struggle with inner battles every day, so it only makes sense that writers, more than most people, should nap.

Many look down on nappers as if we waste away the day. No, we don’t lack stamina or motivation. Nap-naysayers, I say, should fuck off take a hike nap. 

But we need them. Oh, do we ever. As Johnson wrote, “Like children at bedtime, they [authors] find that even the most pointless activity — whining and complaining, walking in circles, or staring at the ceiling — is preferable to relinquishing the world.”

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts. Reach out to me here! (Maybe sleep on it first?)

P.S. If you see me sleeping in the line at Starbucks standing up, just nudge me (and don’t even think of snapping a pic). 

Until next time, flip your hair and flip the page!

Rebecca