Hello from Hamburg,
Mindfulness training is booming. Not being dominated by tormenting thoughts in everyday life and at night is essential for survival in the feverish period of upheaval we are currently experiencing in companies. We don't make good decisions in panic mode, but in a state of inner balance.
For me, the best everyday mindfulness exercise is the short nap. I learned it during my doctorate. As a part-time job, I read the newspapers for the then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. It wasn't that he couldn't read; he just didn't have the time. From five o'clock in the morning, we compiled his political commentary in the daily press at the Federal Press Office in Bonn. I got off work at midday and took the Intercity train from the German capital to Cologne, where I lived and studied, in twenty minutes. After dozing off briefly in my seat, I woke up at Cologne Central Station feeling mentally and physically refreshed. If I had overslept, I would have had to get off one stop further in Düsseldorf, which is particularly painful for a Cologne boy. Since then, I have carried the habit of power napping through all stages of my life and career.
The beneficial effects of napping are in stark contrast to its reputation. It is seen as an unacceptable disruption to a work culture that has been characterized since the industrial age by a seamless succession of deadlines. The reset button seems counter-intuitive, especially in times of crisis, which people feel they have to counter with non-stop activity. This is why the midday siesta is kept secret. Yet the high value of this endangered way of life is well known. A NASA study of military pilots and astronauts found that a nap improves productivity by 34 percent and alertness by 100 percent. Shorter naps of ten to twenty minutes are ideal to avoid sluggishness after waking up and to increase alertness quickly. Here, you only go through the phase of falling asleep, which sleep experts call N1 and which is still little researched. Experts from the Brain Research Institute at Sorbonne University recently discovered that a number of dynamic processes take place in the gray area between waking and sleeping. Brain activity decreases, the heartbeat slows down, consciousness begins to fluctuate and rich sensory experiences occur. The researchers believe it is possible that the brain can associate more freely when dozing off than when awake and then establishes connections between more distant areas of the brain. This enables increased creativity after the nap.
So far, so good. But how do you take a short siesta without the train connection between Bonn and Cologne? How do you switch off the many thoughts that circle in your head during the working day at the touch of a button?
Everyone is familiar with the early afternoon slump, which is often exacerbated by a visit to the canteen or a business lunch. This low follows the normal human biorhythm, which provides for a long sleep phase at night and a short one in the afternoon, as well as breaks every hour and a half. Only then can the knowledge produced and experienced settle and the brain be able to absorb and produce again. Instead of futilely battling a slump with coffee and sweets, when I'm in our company I form a bunk out of the two high-backed sofas in the social room next to the table football table, close the door, say to myself: "Screw you all", lie down, lower my eyelids, lose control of space and time in a few seconds and am in the land of N1. To prevent the short nap from turning into a deep sleep, after which you wake up more exhausted than before, we can learn from the greats. The inventor Thomas Edison is said to have held bullets in his hand, the painter Salvador Dalí a spoon. At the moment of dozing off, the objects fall to the floor and the napper wakes up.
To all beginners, I call on you to have courage and perseverance: be a practicing napper. Make time in your calendar. Practice a few times, supported by autogenic training or relaxation practices, which are available in abundance online. Become the driver of a work culture that adapts to your biorhythm. It is in the company's interest to promote the siesta through acceptance, further training and suitable retreat spaces. Just like at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, where I had a napping room set up for students during my time as Managing Director, which is very popular.
