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# Nap For Change: It's Good for Creativity
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/nap-for-change-its-good-for-creativity/
- Published: 2012-05-21T13:14:51.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:19:09.000Z
- Description: LOS ANGELES — In kindergarten, we learned that sharing is caring, 1+1 is 2, and napping after lunch is a good thing. Most of those lessons from our youthful years still apply, except for that latter one.
- Author: AX Mina
- Tags: Opinion, creativity, sleep, Tumblr, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 06:51 (2012, 2013, part 1)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2012/05/nap4changescreenshot-e1337548868798.png)

LOS ANGELES — In kindergarten, we learned that sharing is caring, 1+1 is 2, and napping after lunch is a good thing. Most of those lessons from our youthful years still apply, except for that latter one. For some reason, despite our protests, we were forced to take a nap. And now that we need a nap, it’s difficult to find the opportunity.

Nap4Change is a new tumblelog I stumbled across that features pictures of none other than nappers going about the business of napping. It reminds me a bit of the [Sleeping Chinese web site](http://www.sleepingchinese.com/index.php?option=com%5Fponygallery&Itemid=26&ref=hyperallergic.com) and [Asians Sleeping in the Library Tumblr](http://asianssleepinginthelibrary.tumblr.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) that made the rounds. It follows up on the success of [Asleep On The Subway](http://asleeponthesubway.tumblr.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) in demonstrating that sleeping anywhere is a universal trait.

“No day is so bad it can’t be fixed with a nap,” as the site’s slogan goes. Those are big words, but how can you refute them? Indeed, if you’re struggling in the studio, trying to find inspiration, sometimes all you need is a nap. According to a study discussed in [*The New York Times*](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/28/technology/28proto.html?ref=hyperallergic.com):

> “Sleep makes a unique contribution,” explains Mark Jung-Beeman, a psychologist at [Northwestern University](http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/northwestern%5Funiversity/index.html?inline=nyt-org&ref=hyperallergic.com) who studies the neural bases of insight and creative cognition.  
>  
> Some sort of incubation period, in which a person leaves an idea for a while, is crucial to creativity. During the incubation period, sleep may help the brain process a problem.

What [Nap4Change](http://nap4change.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) shows is that napping is possible everywhere, whether[ at one’s desk](http://nap4change.com/day/2012/05/16?ref=hyperallergic.com), [waiting for the plane](http://nap4change.com/day/2012/05/14?ref=hyperallergic.com), even [at a TEDxSummit](http://nap4change.com/day/2012/05/12?ref=hyperallergic.com). Those precious few minutes of shut-eye could be a great thing.

Of course, this might be seen to contradict an earlier post of mine, where I pointed at studies showing that [getting drunk and losing sleep are good for creativity](../47094/breaking-getting-drunk-and-losing-sleep-are-good-for-creativity/), but hey, creativity is still a mysterious field. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to stretch out and take a rest.