Health section.qxp_Layout 1 18/11/2021 18:58 Page 70
MENDIP TIMES
In praise of napping
“LADIES and gentlemen, your pilot is feeling a bit drowsy and is taking a nap.” Perhaps not an announcement to inspire confidence when you’re whizzing high above the Atlantic in a cylindrical metal tube and not one you’re likely to hear. But it does happen. Pilots on long haul flights often have 40 winks, but fortunately not at the same time as their coBy Dr PHIL pilot. HAMMOND Air traffic controllers even have the odd lie-down and in some companies napping stations are provided for employees who don’t feel alert enough to continue safely on the production line. So what’s the evidence that napping works? Pretty good, as it happens. A short but intentional period of sleep during the day is not only very pleasant, but produces measurable improvements in mood, alertness and performance... even in those who didn’t feel tired beforehand. The trick is to limit the nap to an optimal 15 minutes and certainly no more than 30. Go for longer and you’re likely to experience the grogginess of “sleep inertia” (a fancy term for not wanting to wake up at all). Also long naps can stop you sleeping well at night, whereas a short power nap can do nothing but good (unless you’re behind the wheel of a car or operating heavy machinery). Many high-level athletes, including Usain Bolt, credit their best performances to a pre-race nap. But do we need to learn how to nap? As patronising as it sounds, there’s an art form to just going under for 15 minutes and you get better with practice. There are people out there who are happy to take money off you for napping training (as opposed to nappy training), but if you practise on your own, you’ll soon get proficient. I often perform comedy late at night which gets the adrenaline going (particularly if people don’t laugh) and stops me getting to sleep afterwards. It’s considered poor form to nap on stage, but I’ve perfected the art of a quick kip in the back of a cab, plane or train, and have yet to miss a stop. True, I do occasionally fart, dribble and snore which isn’t terribly pleasant for nearby passengers, but it’s a small price to pay for arriving refreshed. And now at least my Covid mask disguises any top-end public dribbling. In many workplaces, you’d be seen as a slacker to pop off for a nap but there is evidence of increased productivity in companies that allow naps. As a junior doctor in the dark days of 120-hour weeks, I was forever nipping back to the on-call room for a lie down, but the introduction of shift work has led to the removal of on-call rooms in just about every hospital. Alas, shift work is terrible for your health. The Danish government is convinced by the evidence of potential harms of sleep deprivation and has paid compensation to nurses and air hostesses who developed cancer after years of disrupted sleep and stuffed-up body clocks. Even if your shift is only eight hours, your poor sleep patterns may require you to take a nap and it’s dangerous not to give NHS staff the facilities to do it. Some enlightened hospitals are offering comfy recliner chairs as an alternative to a bed, but most doctors and nurses are having to make do with falling asleep on their feet. So not much change since my day, and not at all safe for patients. One solution would be for doctors to climb aboard with a patient for a short nap. You’d have to go top to tail, for ethical reasons, and try not to get tangled up in drips, drains and catheters. But for patients, a napped doctor is much safer than an un-napped one. Just don’t let anyone with restless legs into your bed. Dr Hammond’s Covid Casebook out now, just £9-99 including cartoons
PAGE 70 • MENDIP TIMES • DECEMBER 2021
Plop the Raindrop
I EXPECT a lot of you might go out for a walk at Christmas, even if you are reluctant to stop playing with your presents. You might even have a new bike to go rolling over the hills. The Mendips can sparkle like magic, especially if there’s a frost. I might be out there sunbathing on a brown frond of fern. I’ll watch out for you. You can see ponies or even deer up there and maybe lots of birds stripping bright red berries from the hawthorn bushes. What you won’t see much of is water. Some water droplets, like me, might be lying around in some muddy puddles or bubbling away in some boggy bits. But you won’t find many streams on Mendip unless there’s a flood, when we go rushing down into the combes and gorges. Normally, after rain, we simply vanish underground. That’s because the hills are made of limestone, which is itself made up of the remains of billions of tiny sea creatures. I was around when these creatures were still alive and when the earth was a very different place and Mendip was under the sea, but that’s a story for another day. Limestone is porous, just like a bath sponge, which means that water can soak through it down into the earth. That’s when it gets exciting. Over millions and millions of years, me and my mates have been busy underground, turning the Mendip Hills into a giant network of caves and tunnels. It’s a watery paradise down there, a crystal world of hissing rivulets and amazing formations. And mud; lots and lots of mud. I can’t count how many Christmases I’ve been trapped in the dark down there with an occasional bat for company. Smelly creatures. The lower down we drip, our rivulets become streams, which then turn into rivers. Eventually you can see us emerging from caves, like those in Cheddar Gorge or Wookey. We even travel underground to emerge in giant springs behind the cathedral in Wells, in the Bishop’s Palace gardens. Can you guess how Wells got its name? It might seem quite a feat to travel all the way from the hills down to Wells. But did you know that water from the Mendips also comes up into the Roman Baths in Bath? Can you guess how Bath got its name? I’ve done that trip many times. It involves sinking deep down into the earth for about 10,000 years before emerging warm enough for human beans to have a bath. Of course, dinosaurs, mammoths and all kinds of creatures enjoyed a dip there before you lot arrived. But that’s yet another story. Have a good Christmas, MENDIP GRANDAD
