Nana naps essential

Eddie Barkla | Bendigo Weekly | 27-Jan-2012

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LOOK FOR THE SIGNS: Learn from your body when it needs recovery time.
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Australia Day – our own Nation’s day and long weekend. The roads are usually very busy, not only because of the holiday, but also because it is one of the last free weekends before schools go back.
A familiar sight on our highways are the slogans warning us of the dangers of driving while feeling tired.
The advice of the Road Traffic Authority is to take a power nap or get out of the car and revive your drive.
Long weekends see service agencies offering cups of tea or coffee and a biscuit, encouraging drivers to take a break.
The combination of the rest, the stimulant of coffee or tea, and food in the stomach all help to relieve the stress of driving and tiredness.
Statistics show that drivers are most at risk the closer they get to home, trying to make the extra effort to reach home without taking a break.
Quite often being over-familiar with the road and surrounds can have the effect of making us want to relax and feel we are already home safely.
In the cycling community there is a bit of a standard joke about the nana naps we all have from time to time.
After a long hard session out on the road on the bike, sitting down to relax often brings a sense of drowsiness that is hard to fight off.
The best advice is – don’t fight it off, learn from your body when it needs recovery time. This powernap will allow for the rest of the day to be met with a relaxed and recovered body and mind.
Speaking recently with a semi-professional cyclist on this matter, it was revealed that the powernap (only a nana nap for the over 50s) is integral to their intensive training schedule and is expected, not rejected.
Refuelling the body with food and beverages that promote recovery may well, in some cases, mask the body’s need for the rest and recovery that the powernap delivers.
I recall, however, an experience in my own health cycle where the nana naps (yes an over 50s specimen) were needed more often than just after we had been out on the bike exercising.
To start with I put this off as just being tired and trying to put too much into the day.
A trip to the doctor and some blood sugar tests indicated that I was bordering on being diabetic. My sugar levels were well above the normal expected levels.
The answer was too much sugar had been introduced into my system through additives in my fluid intake.
I now drink just water and am back to the regular nana naps as needed.
The moral to this experience is: have regular checkups to test the vitals of blood pressure and sugar levels, along with cholesterol – all potential health risks as we age.
Looking forward to seeing you on the road soon, God willing.
b.Entertained

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