BEST of SPAIN  Cala ferrera, Cala Egos siesta in bars

New life, new lifestyle saying goog bye to the Siesta in bars Spain with a adios hello work lunch break Spain.

 Saying  ´adios´ to the Siesta? 

The traditionally Spanish bars long midday break in bars has been under attack for some time; blamed for everything from lowering productivity from holding back the careers of working mothers to breaking up marriages, to making the children perform poorly in school.But, outside of the big cities and the mainland offices of the government, which enforced the one hour lunch break back in January 2006, the siesta seems here to stay. Apartment lunch mybe coming or is a thing of none modern living is it saying adios..

Supporters of the government initiatives to banish the siesta  bars lunch break say that the traditional schedule makes it hard for working parents to balance their careers with the demands of children, and that it is incompatible with Spain’s growing integration into the modern economies of Europe. Government studies go on to say that the Spanish workday “ is characterized by being in the workplace for a very prolonged period of time, and a culture that tends to place greater emphasis on the amount of time worked than on the quality of the work” bars sometimes have the adverse effect on tha lunch break. A comment which is also often heard from those that move their businesses to Spain and experience first hand the differences of the work culture against that of the UK and elsewhere in Europe here you will find lifestyle saying goog bye to the Siesta with a adios hello work living in a cheap apartment is not easy and getting the Siesta.  

It is true that for much of Spain´s recent history, the siesta made the long days bearable. A routine workday that begins at 8 am and finishes at 8pm can seem somewhat rational it if is broken up by a good nap in the afternoon, but today, often with long commutes making a trip home impractical at least in the major cities for your lunch break, could it just be a legacy of idle afternoons that has simply morphed into an epic lunch lasting two or even three hours? 

Even the local café has developed to take the siesta lunch break into account with many offering the fixed-price lunch menus that include appetizer, main course, dessert and beverage – often wine, with waiters expecting patrons to linger for hours, with no effort to hustle them off  out of the bar and clear the tables for a second seating. 

Evening activities are also shifted to later time slots. Prime time TV, for example, begins at 10pm. Dinner often begins after 10, and nobody blinks an eye at climbing into bed at 2 am on weekdays. Local fiestas start late and finish in the early hours, with the children playing right up until the end, even when school starts next day at 8 or 9 am. In fact the Spanish are said to sleep 40 minutes less each day than the typical European, with the lack of sleep said to have consequences including a greater incidence of physical and mental illness and higher rates of traffic and workplace accidents (Fundación Independiente, Spain). 

So, how does the rest of the world react to the siesta Is it an indulgence or are they just envious of a lifestyle sought by many but alien to most? 

For the Japanese the siesta is a ´new´ idea, deemed the ´Power  siesta Nap´. It is widely known that Japanese workers are used to taking pride in long working days, where commutes are often long and work often stretches across the weekends. In fact they even have a word ´Karoshi´ meaning death from overwork, which is reported as claiming approximately 150 lives each year. So, the Japanese are embracing this new cure for stress – a nap siesta. 

Enter the ´Napia Salon´ where, in downtown Tokyo for around 8€, the overworked, and the overstressed can buy 20 minutes or so of peace and quiet on a comfortable day bed, and ease the worries of the day, a break that is often paid for by health insurance policies. One such salon in central Tokyo boasts some 1,500 members, a number which is rapidly expanding. 

Japan used to be hostile to midday sleeping, seeing it as laziness and a distraction from work. Now more people look at naps as a way to renew mental alertness so that they can continue working into the evening. Researchers advise making the nap short, a half hour or less, so that you wake up feeling refreshed, and not groggy. To that end, Nap salons often offer customers a cup of coffee before nap time. Caffeine takes approximately 20 minutes to produce a reaction in the brain, so the pre-nap beverage acts as a natural wake-up call. 

Department stores and catalogues in Japan now also sell a ´desk pillow´. Inside the Tokyo offices of Toyota Motor Corp., afternoon power naps have become commonplace – particularly because the company switches off the office lights during lunchtime to save energy! It´s a common sight to see employees happily dozing with heads down on thick towels or pillows. What would certainly cause offence to employers in many countries of Europe, is actively encouraged in Japan. 

But it´s not just the senior businessmen doing it. At Mizen High School in Fukuoka, Japan students are encouraged to take fifteen minute naps after lunch in their classroom. The school principle reports that test results have improved and fewer students are falling asleep during class. Several schools have apparently followed suit and many more are considering adopting the process. In a nation known for its tireless diligence, the students have joined a sleep revolution that has investment bankers and bureaucrats dreaming through midday.  

One Tokyo company even has its own ´Nightingale Room´ where workers can ditch the caffeine and let the eyelids close for a tiny siesta. However, let´s not pretend that this is not still about improving work results and getting more than 100% out of employees but, in Japan at least, you might not be fired if you´re caught sleeping on the job. 

As in Spain, a lunchtime break was common practice in Japanese farmers who worked from the early morning until late at night. The custom even expanded during the 17^th century when missionaries from the Iberian Peninsula brought the concept of siestas to Japanese shores. It was only when Japan was exposed to the non-siesta countries of England, Germany and France that the idea of napping gradually became taboo in Japan.  

And here's another misunderstanding about siestas. It's not really a Mediterranean invention. Before the industrial revolution and fixed working hours, it would have been perfectly normal in northern Europe for people to take an afternoon sleep before a big evening meal.  

People wanted to stay sharp for the big social occasion of the evening meal or bars evening meeting, so they had a couple of hours sleep around 4pm. And then, refreshed and hungry after the lunch break, they would wake for their dinner and then go to bed around midnight, getting up again at daylight. cheap rentals living means you need that lunch break siesta. 

So, is it time for Spain itself to re-learn the importance of the siesta, to give workers the opportunity to return it to the original purpose – a chance to catch up with a little sleep, a chance to refresh the batteries and begin the afternoon recharged. Is the perceived development of the Spanish siesta into a long and lazy lunch only more likely to make the afternoons drowsy and unproductive – and should we learn the lessons of Japan and introduce a ´siesta salon´ to our government offices and encourage all employees to take the benefit of a power nap rather than three-courses including wine? 

After all science says that taking two sleeps a day is perfectly normal; as we experience a natural dip 12 hours after a night of full and deep sleep. A siesta may still be the best way to make it through the day – at least in Japan.  search in google        mallorca uk james gmail.New life, new lifestyle find a bar job 3 page.

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