AEE: Why Napping Is a Refreshing Connection Topic

This is an All Ears English podcast. Why napping is a refreshing connection topic. welcome to the all ears english podcast downloaded more than 200 million times are you feeling stuck with your english we'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection not perfection with your american hosts lindsey mcmahon the english adventurer and michelle kaplan the new york radio girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.

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Are you able to nap? Is napping a part of your culture or your daily life? Today, we dive into the topic of cat naps and power naps, and we show you how this can be the beginning of a robust connection conversation in English.

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Take the quiz now for free at allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. Hey, Lindsay, how are you? Good, Michelle.

Feeling sleepy today? Are you feeling like you want to take a nap? I am feeling like I want to take a nap. Do you take a lot of naps, Lindsay? Are you a napper?

I actually sort of took a little nap yesterday, but I rarely do. But for some reason yesterday, I was just feeling a little tired, just decided to lie down. So it took like a 30 minute nap or so, which was really nice for a change. Yeah.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, especially lately, I absolutely need naps. And, you know, we've talked about sleeping before on the show. And today we're going to talk about naps.

Because it is a good conversation topic, because everyone can relate to that feeling of Oh, I wish I could get a little nap or something like that. If they nap, can they nap all of these things. Yeah. And it's really funny how when you're in college, napping takes on a whole new level of importance.

At least it did on my campus. I feel like kids napped a lot in college and talked about napping a lot in college. Yeah. Less so in adult life, but we still get to grab a nap once in a while.

So we're going to get into all this today and how to talk about it. But I want to call out a couple of people that left comments and reviews over on Spotify and just say a huge thank you. So thank you to Saddam Mode. Thank you to Aynes.

Thank you to Geriardi. And thank you to TonySouza17. These are all listeners who took the time to go and write a message, left a rating and review. Wherever you listen, rate our show, review our show, guys.

Tell us what you think about the show. All right. Definitely. All right. Thank you so much. So let's go into so we're going to do some key vocab and then we're going to do some connection questions, basically.

OK, so this is the first one. So when you took that nap yesterday, Lindsay, the 30 minute nap, did you wake up and did you feel refreshed right away or did you feel groggy? Yeah, I guess it wasn't a proper nap because I never fully fell asleep. I just kind of closed my eyes and relaxed.

But like, I do tend to feel groggy after I nap during the day. That's why I usually don't do it at all. Just because of the way you feel after. So groggy is a good word.

What does it feel like to be groggy? Yeah. To be groggy, you just feel like out of it. Yeah, you could also say out of it. You just don't feel, you're like a little confused.

You don't feel good. You don't feel good. You feel more tired, really. Yeah. Yeah. A little disconnected from Earth. Yeah. but i always feel like it's the next day like yeah do you have that i feel i feel like really like this was all in the same day but i feel it's just so funny yeah it's a little bit of the same feeling i get when i walk out of a um a movie like a daytime movie it's like oh the light hits you you're like wait right daytime what what day is it what is it and totally confused and lost and

Yeah. So I it's hard to hit that sweet spot when you nap to where you just wake up feeling refreshed, which is another great word. It's kind of and I feel like a lot of people wake up groggy. And a lot of times what happens to me is I will wake up

groggy and I feel like I'm going to die. And I'm like, this is not a good feeling. And then maybe in half an hour later, then I start to feel the benefits of what I had done. But it's not good at first.

It's not good at first, for sure. And I'm also excited we're talking about this today because I know our listeners around the world, napping is a part of different cultures. Siesta. That's true.

Right. And many cultures have a siesta period. Maybe it's becoming less and less common in the cities. But I Everything is shut down between what, like 12 and three.

So some of our listeners are still really enjoying daily naps, I'm sure, in different cultures, right? Especially in hotter cultures. So this is huge. This is huge.

Definitely. So for the word groggy, G-R-O-G-G-Y, you might hear, I slept for about 20 minutes. I'm groggy right now, but I'll perk up soon. Yeah, exactly.

So groggy is a really important word to know. It's a bit of a sleep hangover, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yep. And then cat nap or power nap is really good.

Because what are we trying to say when we're saying we're going to take a cat nap or a power nap? You're going to give yourself a nap that gives you power that gives you that energy. And it's a fast. It's not like it could even be 15 minutes, right?

It's not you don't say power nap or cat nap about a three hour nap, right? Yes, yes, absolutely. It's just a light one. And then you're implying that you're going to be better off after.

So for example, I'm going to take a quick power nap to get me through the rest of the day. It's going to be a long night. And then there's crash. So that's when you're so tired, you just fall asleep.

So after lunch, I try to take a rest. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I just crash. Yeah. This is a really common slangy way to talk about falling asleep, right?

To crash. I crashed last night at 1030, a little earlier than I was planning to, right? I mean, it's everywhere in our language. It's a very slangy way to say, go to sleep, basically.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Lindsay, so when you nap, do you normally fall asleep? Are you trying to nap? Do you like yesterday where you're like, okay, I'm gonna take a nap?

Or does it just kind of happen? Like, yeah, well, I wish I had better answers. I'm not much of a napper, to be honest. I really don't nap very much because – I mean I was a napper in college because everyone was napping.

I was like part of the culture in college because kids would stay up late in the dorm life. You just napped. It was part of your life in college. But I just – I don't really nap as an adult that much to be honest.

What about you, Michelle? I mean – Now I do, but I used to not be able to. I mean, yeah, my friend just told me, oh, because I was able to take a quick 20-minute nap recently, and I told my friend, and he said, I can't do that.

20 minutes is nothing. It takes so long to fall asleep. But lately, I've been able to sleep faster, and now not so much. But the biggest nap time for me is if I'm riding in the car, not when I'm driving, but

But when I'm in the passenger seat, because it's all that motion, right? And yeah, with my kids, even if you know, that's how I mean, I'm sure a lot of parents can relate to this. If your child won't nap, if your child won't fall asleep, you probably put them in the car and drive them around. I've heard that.

Yeah. I've heard that. I mean, and it's, for me, it's always like I'm, the nap will happen if I'm recovering from a time when I couldn't sleep. Like it's every time I fly across the Atlantic to Europe these days, I cannot sleep the overnight flight where you're supposed to sleep.

And so there's, and then there's always like a, you know, Munich to Slovenia or Munich to Italy, whatever. There's always a tiny flight. It's like an hour and a half. I'll nap on that flight and I'll feel awful when I wake up.

It's the wrong way. It's like the body doesn't know because the screens are really distracting at night on that overnight Atlantic flight. And there's always that one person turning the light on. Oh my gosh.

It's crazy. So usually my naps happen more at times when I probably shouldn't be napping or don't want to be napping, you know? Yeah. Cause sometimes I remember feeling like, okay, I'm going to feel actually worse if I nap than if I don't nap.

So that can happen too. It's interesting. Totally. Yeah. Really interesting. Add a little curiosity into your routine with TED Talks Daily, the podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday.

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All right. So this is obviously a huge connection skill. Human beings need sleep. We are all human here. So we can connect on our like the basic human needs.

Right. Yeah. So I mean, as far as it being a connection topic, look like you're sharing with me. OK, I don't nap now, but in college, you know, and then that could lead us into a whole nother conversation about college and what it was like.

So there's so much there. But there are kind of starter questions here. So, Lindsay, what's one thing you can ask? Yeah, I mean, I can ask you, are you able to take naps?

Because like I said, we said not all adults are able to or do or make the time for it, right? Or you could even say, are you a napper? Are you a napper? That's a person who takes naps.

So but yeah, some answers might be, oh, I can't nap or I wish I could or yes, I nap whenever I can. Yeah. Are you able to nap outdoors? Like do you nap in hammocks on the beach?

Uh, I don't know. Like when you're outside, are you able to nap? Michelle? Good question. Um, I will let you know when I am outside more in the summer, but no, not, I don't think as much.

I think I'm on the couch and my bed and, but in the car, that's the, that's the, in the car is the sweet spot for that. Yeah. Yep. Exactly. I, yeah. Um,

So, and then here's another question. How long do you nap for? Exactly. And here, you know, in casual English, a lot of grammarians might say we don't like that for at the end of that sentence, but we don't mind it because this is verbal English.

This is spoken English. People say it. This is human connection. Okay. So that's the goal in Allers English. We are not trying to be super strict grammarians here.

We're going to teach you grammar, but we're always going to favor connection over grammar perfection. Right? So we're going to teach you what we say. Because you're not going to run into a native speaker and you're just having a conversation and you say, how long do you nap for?

And they're like, really? Four? Yeah, they're not going to call you out. Exactly. Yeah, very practical English we're learning over here. So how would you answer this?

If I ask you, Michelle, how long do you nap for? You might say something like, oh, I just take a quick power nap or I usually nap for about 10 minutes, 20 minutes or an hour, right? Yeah. And then do you feel refreshed when you wake up?

That's another question we might ask. If you're really getting into this napping thing, maybe you're trying to learn how to nap as an adult, right? Yeah. Maybe.

So you could say something like, oh, I wake up and I feel much better or I wake up pretty groggy. Yeah. Or you could also ask, what's the craziest place you've ever taken a nap? For me, it was definitely in a museum.

I think I took a nap in a museum recently in... Maybe it was Slovenia or somewhere in Europe. It was after, you know, the cross-Atlantic flight, right? It's that first day when you, if you go to Europe, you try to stay up all day.

You usually land around 10 a.m. or 9 a.m. What we do from Denver, from the East Coast, you might land even earlier. I'm not sure. And then you don't like the thing you shouldn't do is go to bed. Right.

So you have to find a way to stay awake that whole day. We usually try to book like a food tour, like tours or moving. But I think this time we went to a museum and I definitely, I was, I was watching a movie in the museum and I kind of nodded off in the front row. And I think people were laughing at me actually.

Yeah. Yeah. So what about you? What's the craziest place? I'm thinking of my sister-in-law because I remember when I lived in New York, I mean, when I was in my early 20s and they came to visit me and my sister-in-law fell asleep in a bar and...

That's crazy. Somebody came over and that, cause they thought she was really drunk. Right. But she wasn't, she just, it was, she falls asleep earlier than the rest of us.

So it wasn't so much a nap. I think it was like, she was down for the night if she could have been like nine at night in the bar. And they're like, you can't sleep in here because they think you're, they think you're drunk. Yeah.

Yeah. So that's, that's what I remember from her. But, uh, yeah, so that, that's a good one. That's a good one. Falling asleep in a bar. I like it. Yeah.

All right, Michelle. So clearly this is a connection topic. We're enjoying this because we both like we both sleep. Right. So we have that in common. It's like the weather.

You know, you can actually get pretty far sometimes and you can use it as you said, Michelle, a branching off topic, a jumping off point to get into other areas that might be more interesting. So let's look at a little role play here. All right. Here we go.

Here we are friends and we're at lunch. All right. Okay. I just feel so tired. Well, are you able to nap? Maybe you can take a power nap when you get home.

I can't nap. I never fall asleep. You can nap? Oh, yeah. If I don't nap in the afternoon, I crash by night. Well, how long do you nap for? Usually just a 15-minute cat nap.

Oh, wow. So do you feel refreshed when you wake up? I wake up pretty groggy, but after a few minutes, I feel much better. Nice. All right. I'll have to try again.

Yeah, I think a lot of I feel like in American culture, maybe a lot of adults don't nap as much. I don't know. It's not as much of a part of our culture. Right.

Yeah. Well, I do think that sometimes people who work from home, I have heard my friends say, Oh, I had, I was so tired. I had like, like an hour break. And then I, you know,

But I think it kind of depends where you work. You're not going to really nap if you're working in an office. Yeah, no, Drew. I feel like I heard a few years ago that like different cities were building like little napping pods.

So that was a business that was taking off. But I haven't heard anything lately about it where you could check in. I think that was on Shark Tank maybe. Right, right.

It's a good idea. I mean, we're such a sleep deprived culture, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, sometimes that's what you need to get you through the rest of the day.

So let's go through it. So you said, so I said, I just feel so tired. And you said, Are you able to nap? Maybe you can take a power nap when you get home.

And why do we ask things like, Are you able to nap? Why is that even a question? Like it's asking about your, your habits, your daily, like you, are you, are you capable of napping? Like as an adult, like, are you a napper?

Right. Are you, can you do it? Like I'm trying to help you a little bit, I guess. Right. Well, I mean, here it could either mean like, oh, um, do you have time?

It could mean, do you have time for a nap? It could mean that too. Right. Do you have time for a nap? But it could also just be like, yeah, there's this ability.

Some people can nap and some people really can't fall asleep. Right. Um, for that. So, um, and then some people might take a nap and then at night they can't sleep.

And so they're like, I, you know, it'll mess up my night, you know? Oh, true. Some people only nap when they're sick, really. So like, you know, something's not right if they're napping.

Right. Yeah. Everyone's got their own style. That's for sure. But then we have the word crash, very common slangy way of saying go to sleep or fall asleep hard, right?

I said, oh, yes, if I don't nap in the afternoon, I crash by nighttime. I would say nighttime. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, and then I said, how long do you nap for?

And again, you're not going to look at me and say, really grammar, Michelle? Yeah, no, native speakers are not. And also native speakers are not going to correct you either. Right.

And that's not what we want. We want to connect. We're having a good, we're having a good talk. Yeah, it would be awkward if a native speaker stopped and tried to correct your English.

Honestly, guys, you know, go with the flow, find the connection, right? And that's where the fluency comes from. Okay, good. So you said usually just a 15 minute cat nap.

And then I said, do you feel refreshed when you wake up? And I said, now this is on a regular basis. We're talking about habitually, right? Because that's why we're using the present tense here.

I say, I wake up pretty groggy, but after a few minutes, I feel much better. You could say I usually feel much better too. right yeah yeah so good stuff and then I said maybe I'll have to try it again so guys check out episode 2616 that was that's on me admitting mistakes without making it awkward so listen to that one Lindsay, takeaway for today.

Well, first of all, I'm sleepy. Yeah. Yeah. Let's go take a nap. I'm really glad we covered it. I'm surprised we haven't covered this topic in how many 2,600 episodes.

We've never talked about sleep before. We may have touched on napping, but this is certainly... Yeah. Not recently that I can think of, right? I mean, this is great because it's so cultural.

There are traditions, there are cultures we could talk about. This is truly a jumping off conversation where you could talk about cultural differences between you and your friend that lives in a whole other part of the world. You could talk about daily habits. You could talk about sleep deprivation in today's culture.

There's so much you could go into here, right? That's why it's a connection topic. Yeah, it's a good one. So anyway, on that note, you know, all this nap talk is making me tired.

Don't fall asleep on the microphone. Yeah, then I can answer the what's the weirdest place you've taken a nap? And I'll say during an episode. All right, Michelle, you have a good day.

I'll talk to you soon. All right. Bye. Bye, guys. All right. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English. Would you like to know your English level?

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