Web Worker Daily

We’ve written before about the benefits of an afternoon “power nap” in helping you get through the day and attack problems with renewed energy. But some folks have trouble getting to sleep in a limited time slot. For reluctant nappers, the downloadable application pzizz promises help. It runs on either Windows or Mac systems, and I had a chance to give it a spin this week.

Pzizz is easy to use: you launch the application, choose a preset (the “Default Energizer” preset is designed for a 20-minute power nap), and tell it to generate a soundtrack. Then you can play your soundtrack directly on the computer (useful if you have headphones and enough space on your desk to put your head down) or export it to MP3 for playback on another device (likely to be more comfortable for most users).

The soundtracks that pzizz generates combine relaxation suggestions, music, sound effects, and binaural beats (made by feeding slightly different pure tones into the two ears, which by some theories forces your brainwaves to the frequencies typical of sleep) in a partially-randomized sequence that results in a different nap program each time you generate the soundtrack. Thus, you pay once ($29.95 for just the energizer module, or $49.95 for the energizer and the longer sleep module as well) and get an ever-changing variety of tracks - although they will change within fixed parameters. For example, it’s always the same voice repeating the suggestions, and the music doesn’t shift wildly. But it’s definitely more variety than listening to the same sleep tape over and over again.

The pzizz folks say they use Neuro-Linguistic Programming principles in putting the whole thing together. For most people the more important question will be whether it works. I will say that in my test drive the pzizz soundtracks were pleasantly relaxing, but then, I don’t have a great deal of trouble napping on my own. They have a sample MP3 you can listen to on their downloads page, which will help you decide whether this is an approach that you’d like to pursue for your own naps.