I like Joey's 20 second power nap -- Joey, you say, "in a crowd" -- can you actually nap standing up?

Hi Lou.........You ask a good question and I had to think about it before I answered.    If my memory serves me correctly, I can't say that I have EVER fallen asleep standing up.   Sitting up, leaning against something while sitting down, but generally laying flat......stomach down or on my side., all are positions where I can nap from.     When I say that I can nap "on demand",  I meant that if someone asked me to fall asleep, there is a good chance I would be able to lay down wherever we are, and fall asleep on the spot.

Again, to bring this back to Enke's subject, I CAN NOT do the nap thing after a long run.    It takes several hours of cooling down before I come back to my "normal" abiity to do the nap thing.  So somehow the exercise disrupts my system.

Your situation Enke, MAY very well be health related.   Your body may NEED to be taking a nap at this time.  We (RA'ers) obviously are all different in the area of taking a nap, so there is no set pattern.   I think this also changes individually over time.

Quite obviously, it would be dangerous to finish a long run and then 10 steps later lay down and go to sleep.   There needs to be the normal cooling down period of moving around / walking around, before laying down or even sitting down is attempted.

Like Holly, I do my long workouts pretty early in the morning. Depending on how far I go, and how hard I work at it, I may want a nap by late morning or early afternoon. A 20 minute nap is about perfect. A short nap can be wonderfully rejuvenating!

I also find, however, that if I have a lot on my 'to-do' list, and just don't stop moving, I'll likely get beyond the "need a nap" stage, and keep going for the rest of the day. So that makes me think that there is some 'want' in deciding to take a nap, as well as some 'need.'

Jay