Inemuri - Taking power naps in Japanese style

As a middle school student, my daily commutes to school and back lasted over an hour each way. This continued through secondary school too, as I commuted between Patiala and the industrial town of Rajpura in Punjab, where we lived. Refreshingly, and interestingly, I don't remember cribbing or complaining about these long bus rides. But, I do distinctly remember relishing those rides as I caught up on sleep, which was extremely revitalising.

A little bump on my head bears testimony to the real 'tete-a-tete' within (with and in) the bus! No sooner would the bus change into the second gear, I would catch myself falling asleep. One of my teachers, who also took the same bus back then, would greet me when I woke up, after a superpower nap, saying this is a great gift that I have. I am not sure I fully understood the import of it back then, and this seemed the most natural thing to happen.

A few years later, in the early eighties when I travelled to Japan, I saw this familiar snoozing phenomenon in many places. On trains, buses, even guards outside buildings were noticed 'catnapping' by me! Much later, during my study at Harvard, I again came across the good old 'forty winks' as my classmates from Japan dozed during lectures, and conversations and meetings. As people who were very polite and meticulous about a host of things, I wondered why this was not considered 'impolite' by them. Discussing this with them, I learnt of the Japanese art of Inemuri. As explained by Brigitte Steger in the BBC, 'Inemuri' refers to 'napping on public transportation and during work meetings, classes and lectures. Women, men and children apparently had little inhibition about falling asleep when and wherever they felt like doing so.'

Back in the eighties, Japan was acknowledged as the epitome of productivity and success in business and enterprise, worldwide. The Japanese businessman had the dubious repute of working for 28 hours in a day, and the double dubiousness of actually taking pride in this. Doesn't this sound familiar to some of us?! The bubble economy of Japan, as it was known then made people densely crowd their diaries, with work, meetings, hectic daily chores, along with work and leisure appointments. This effectively shooed out their time to sleep. This resulted in a very common practice of hordes of people dozing comfortably in public commutes, strangely, even while standing up! Given the very polite culture of Japan that shuns immodesty, inemuri or even its pretence is, interestingly, even seen as a sign that the person has been working hard!

The busy beavers or worker bees were drawing on these 'commute' and interstitial times to catch a wink. This was also culturally related to the Japanese practice of children sleeping with their parents even well into their intial school years. This conditioning, perhaps, culturally helps people sleep well in the company of others. After the Tsunami, too, many of the survivors in Japanese shelters are reported to have gone on to say that a communal sleeping space actually helped them 'relax and regain their sleep rythm.'

Shut-eyes are also shown to improve concentration, enhance productivity, reduces anxiety, helps consolidate information, makes one morally and mentally fortified, recharging energy and even minimising levels of cortisol, which increases blood sugar. With these insights, companies such as Huffington Post, PwC, Uber and Google are now endorsing napping at workplaces and also provide napping nooks, EnergyPod chairs and office nap rooms.

I recall those really invigorating cat winks during my school days. We could sprinkle light 'cat naps' into our hectic days for better health. Whether we are night owls, early larks or a mix, we could adopt a natural, disarming, baby-like approach to napping, in the Japanese, Inemuri style, especially while travelling or even during lunch breaks. As I write this, I notice my co-passenger in the plane following Inemuri!

The author is a Harvard-educated civil servant & writer, and has worked in the education sector 
jayanti.ravi.dna@gmail.com