"Avidly Recumbent" El Cerrito Woman Pens Paean to Napping

Taking a nap can be a stroke of genius, or so it was for Jennifer Eyre White, El Cerrito resident and author of a book on napping which was published June 7.

“I was falling asleep for a nap, and the book, The Practical Writer, was by my bed,” said White. “Right away the title for this book, The Practical Napper: Tips, Facts, and Quotes for the Avidly Recumbent, popped into my head.” Upon waking and recalling the title, she went straight to her computer and started to type things up, “chortling to myself.”

“As I was doing research for the book, I found out that that’s not uncommon, to have new insights after sleep,” said White.

White’s a published writer, with essays in anthologies, The East Bay Monthly, and several websites, including LiteraryMama.com. While looking for an agent for her memoirs, a prospective agent asked White whether she had any other book ideas.

"I told her about the nap book. She said, ‘Send me a pitch.’ I did, and she signed me on,” said White. In about three months the agent had found White a publisher, Andrews McMeel Publishing. White wrote the book in about seven months; it took a mere 18 months from initial idea to publication.

“In the last few years, there’s been a lot of research on the benefits of napping,” White said. “I hit a target-rich environment. I think the issue of sleep is a huge one for parents. We actually don’t care if they [the kids] go to sleep – we want to sleep.”

Though primarily humorous and light-hearted, The Practical Napper could also surprise you.

One fact that startled White was how many hours of sleep parents with newborns lose in the first year of their child’s life: from 400 to 750 hours.

After three children, White figures, “I’ll have to nap 2,000 hours to make up for that.”

Like White’s quick wit, the pocket-sized book inspires laughter, with such notable quips as Yogi Berra’s gem, “I usually take a two-hour nap from one to four.”

White said that Jack Handey’s rambling puzzlement, included in her book, “totally cracks me up”: “If you ever crawl inside an old hollow log and go to sleep, and while you’re in there two guys come and seal up both ends and then put it on a truck and take it to another city – boy, I don’t know what to tell you.”

Another of her favorites comes from Dr. Sara Mednick, author of Take a Nap, Change Your Life!  Mednick writes, “Some people say, ‘I haven’t done enough to deserve a nap.’ Do you deserve to eat? To breathe? No natural function should be regarded as a privilege.”

The book does offer a serious side. Researching the effects of sleep deprivation, White learned “that people who drive after being awake for seventeen to nineteen hours perform worse than those with a blood alcohol level of 0.05 percent.”

Poor decision-making and poor judgment have been linked to not getting enough sleep at the crucial times. “The different phases of sleep help with various types of learning,” said White.

But, White warns, she is primarily a humor writer. “As an avid napper, I had fun reading about recent napping research – and then twisting it to humorous effect.”

For example: “Research shows that when you sleep, your brain can process new information learned during the day. Therefore, it’s a good idea to go right to sleep whenever people are trying to teach you something – as in a physics class, for example, or at work meetings or church services. If anyone questions your behavior, tell them that you don’t want to wait until nighttime to process such important information.”

The Practical Napper hit bookstores in time for Father’s Day. There will be a reading and book-signing event on July 17 at 5 p.m. at Books Inc. in Berkeley. Check the book’s website for other upcoming events.