No, not the hide of a young animal.
A kip, as in a nap! Or maybe it’s an Australian thing?
You see there are two types of human. Those that love sleeping during the day, and those that cannot handle it.
You know the type of person who loves a daytime sleep. You see them out for dinner looking sprightly and fresh and you whisper “what’s your secret?” as you struggle to keep your eyes open. They reply “I had a sleep from 2pm-6pm, I feel great.”
For me, I hate sleeping during the day. It completely throws me. I wake up in a pool of my own dribble wondering what decade it is and whether I’m in a 5th dimension, like something out of Interstellar.
However, there is an answer. Kips!
As I mentioned by kip, I mean a short nap, less than 25min, to be taken only at times when you’re feeling tired or stroppy (i.e. 3pm erry day for me).
There’s some science to this if you want to dig deeper. But basically, per my detailed drawing below, you want to rest enough that you end up back in the ‘sweet spot’ (which takes anywhere from 10-20min). Less than 10min doesn’t give your body enough time to rest; longer than 20min is when you’ll start heading into the deep sleep and end up waking in a state of complete dishevelment. Not ideal.
Highly technical drawing I did in Paint 2… Has anyone ever tried to use this app!?
The key post-kip is to immediately get up.
Don’t faff around lazing in bed and end up falling back asleep. Put some music on as soon as you hear your alarm (or put your alarm out of reach so you must get out of bed). Then shake it out and get on with life. Within a couple of minutes, you should feel amazing.
PRO TIP: Finish your nap, jump straight into a cold shower and feel the next level alertness!