Shnatz: Scheduling Mental Afternoon Reboots

Shnatz (שנ״צ) in Hebrew (the tz as the zz in pizza) is an abbreviation of two Hebrew words, שנת צהריים, which means noon sleep. In the US, this is known as Siesta, borrowed from Spanish, because the concept of a noon nap is as alien to Americans as a baconless breakfast, so we don’t have a word for it here. The photo above by Svein Halvor Halvorsen, “Last day before final exam,” licensed as CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. In Israel, where I grew up, this was a sacred time in the day. You weren’t allowed to play soccer with your friends; you weren’t allowed to make noise. In kindergarten, you’re “strongly encouraged” to take a nap, or else. This is slowly becoming a sacred time for me too. As time goes by, my struggle with the need for a “power nap” after 4.5 to 6.5 hours of night sleep is becoming something I’m comfortable with, a ritual I’m looking forward to. As a morning person whose creativity mostly takes place in the morning with a cup of coffee, which is why I blog in these hours usually…