“If necessity is the mother of invention, laziness is the mother of efficiency.”

(Via Linda Eskin’s Twitter.)

(via Jonathan Dingman’s Twitter)

It’s the time of year when many of us are driving distances for the holidays, prepping for semster-end exams or trying to fit too much work and shopping into the crammed month of December.

What to do when you need a little boost? The New York Times has two stories on caffeine versus the nap.

In this story, a small study suggests that for improved physical and mental performance, say in taking an exam, an afternoon nap works better than caffeine.

But in this story about driving, a jolt of java is found to be better than a nap.

Fred Gratzon has a sweet 5-minute movie called “In Praise of Laziness.”

The movie stars humanity’s greatest thinkers “stingingly rebuking the concept of hard work and embracing the power of laziness.” Fred believes people who work hard don’t have the time, the energy or the inclination to find an easier, more efficient way.

Can you hear Marty’s heart beating faster? Someone who adores laziness as much as Marty?! Click here to learn more about Fred and his book, “The Lazy Way to Success: How to do Nothing and Accomplish Everything.”

Click here to learn more about The Gimpy Girls’ view of lazy.

Anyone who questions the value of a nap just hasn’t learned what these guys already know.

(via gr8wisdom.com)

The Boston Globe has a wonderful story - rich with graphics - about how to take the perfect nap and how to determine whether you are an “owl” or a “lark” in your body rhythms.

Click here to learn more about your napping style.

A Little Book of Lazy Inspiration

Stephen Robins’ book argues with wit that idling plays an important role in both the progress of civilization and in our daily well-being. With quotes and advice from Charles Dickens and Sir Thomas More to Henry Ford and Oscar Wilde, this sweet little book is proof indeed, as Schlegel wrote, that “Laziness is the one divine fragment of godlike existence left to man from paradise.”

Click to buy

In Defense of Naps, Bacon, Martinis, Profanity and Other Indulgences

The Washington Post calls Barbara’s Holland’s book “pleasingly subversive” while Marty - a lifelong devotee of the nap - says Holland nails it when she writes, “Americans are afraid of naps.”

“Large numbers of us are, for one reason or another, home-bound, but do we indulge in the restorative nap? Mostly not. Oozing virtue and busyness, we flog ourselves on till evening,” Holland writes.

Milton wrote “Paradise Lost” in bed and Winston Churchill, a prodigious writer, produced some of his most important works from his bed, “brandy bottle at the ready.

“No doubt when inspiration flagged and his thoughts refused to marshall, (Churchill) took a nip and a nap. Now there was a man who knew a thing or two about a good day’s work,” Holland writes of the great prime minister.

“Endangered Pleasures” is the perfect book for the night stand in your guest room or the person going on vacation. “It shamelessly advocates all the pleasures that have fallen into low repute since modern Puritanism cast its pall over the country,” Russell Baker said in The New York Times.

Click to learn more about Holland’s unabashed ode to joy

Often, people are ashamed of their urge to nap.

But by giving in to the urge, they actually are improving the quality of their lives, says Dr. David F. Dinges, Nap Specialist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Click here to learn about the post-lunch dip, your circadian rhythm and why naps make our short, brutish lives that bit more bearable.