MADRID--Maria Jose Mateo's midday routine is a daring act of defiance against a force that has ruled Spain for centuries. The 29-year-old bank employee tries to stay awake.

Up at 6 a.m. after six hours of sleep, she works 8 to 3, has a heavy lunch at her parents' home and dashes back to the office by about 5 p.m. to work till 9, leaving her father dozing on the couch and feeling quite drowsy herself. As hard as she resists, the 40-minute subway ride usually lulls her into submission. At the end of the line, the stop beneath her skyscraper office, she wakes up slightly embarrassed, though she's rarely the only one on her car who has fallen asleep.

This, for most workaday Spaniards, is what the siesta has come to. With Spain under pressure to adjust to richer neighbors' timetables, the ritual three-hour break for lunch and a nap is disappearing. But the historic urge to nod off keeps fighting back.

Spaniards say they are working harder these days and sleeping less, feeling at once more prosperous and fatigued. Their economy has awakened in recent years to become one of the fastest growing in Europe--in part because of more industrious habits that, according to one nationwide survey, have reduced regular siesta-takers to 24% of the population.

The siesta is losing ground in other Mediterranean strongholds as Portugal, Italy and Greece also rush to catch up with their more advanced partners in the 15-nation European Union. It suffered a blow in Mexico last year when 50,000 public servants had their long midday breaks cut to one hour.

But only here, in the country that gave the siesta its universal name, is the trend bemoaned as an assault on a national icon. As Spain's corporate culture spurns the idea of daytime dozing as unproductive, a vocal minority--led by a few sleep researchers and a nap salon entrepreneur named Federico Busquets--has rallied to its defense in the name of tradition and good health.

More than save the siesta, Busquets is trying to reinvent it. His Barcelona-based chain called Masajes a 1.000 offers victims of shortened lunch breaks a fast-food version of the siesta: a five-minute massage and a half-hour nap for 1,000 pesetas, or about $5.80.

With 16 franchises, the 2-year-old chain is growing sluggishly. For many Spaniards, the siesta is inseparable from the custom of going home to the family; the habit of napping anywhere else would be a change as radical as simply staying awake at midday. But Busquets is a relentless salesman.

"We are Spain," he said. "Losing the siesta would be like losing bullfights or sangria or paella." Siesta comes from sexta, the Spanish word for sixth, because it is generally taken six hours into the workday. The long break has been traditional in many countries with stifling midday heat, but Spaniards claim to have done the most to perfect the ritual, which Camilo Jose Cela, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, calls "our Iberian yoga."

Spaniards with enough time follow Cela's prescription of taking a long siesta in bed, clad in pajamas with a chamber pot at the ready. Others swear by the "micro-siesta" advocated by King Charles I in the 16th century and refined by surrealist painter Salvador Dali: You nod off in a chair with a heavy key or spoon in hand, and the instant it clatters to the floor, as dozing turns to sleep after about 20 minutes, it's time to get back to work.

Midafternoon TV is programmed to lull viewers. Documentaries on insects are the best yawners, siesta-takers say, followed by Venezuelan soap operas. The siesta still dictates the rhythms of towns such as Plasencia, population 41,000, where construction noise several years ago prompted the mayor to decree silence between 3 and 5 p.m.
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MADRIDMAN LOVES SIESTAS IN THE AFTERNOON IN SPAIN!!!! In fact, it's the ONLY time he can sleep in the afternoon, when he's vacationing in Spain!

Saludos, MadridMan

[This message has been edited by MadridMan (edited 06-11-2000).]

Hi MM. Very interesting article. My impression in Spain is that the siesta is still very much part of the daily rhythm. For instance, schools follow the "siesta" timetable, so kids are brought up being used to a long midday break (typically they go home). By the time they're adults it's their natural rhythm (actually it may be natural anyway, even without training!). It's not the sleeping that's the main thing, it's that the midday meal is the main meal of the day, and families like to eat together. It's a social thing, and the Spanish are very sociable people. The idea of a one hour lunchbreak (or a sandwich in front of the computer!) is "una barbaridad" to most Spanish people. !Es que no tiene gracia!

The article highlights an interesting "modern" consequence of the siesta. With the advent of commuting (a modern phenomenon), the siesta creates 4 rush hours a day! I've seen this in Malaga, but it was most obvious in Madrid - the streets are choked with traffic at 2pm.

Saludos!

madridman, thanks for posting such a great article!

the siesta will never be weeded out of the spanish blood, however. when i worked in madrid (which is one of the more cosmopolitan cities of spain, and hence more likely to submit to outside influences probably), my friends and i would always take siesta. this was a natural thing that everyone gravitated toward and would not miss for anything...

the best was to have midday meal and attempt to watch the lousy afternoon movies they would have after the news. invariably you would be bored with the movie and just fall asleep... and it was always SO difficult to get back up and get to work... but it was so necessary because getting to work by 7am or 6:30am is so early, and you are really ready for that meal!

anyway, thanks again for posting that, madridman...

¡viva españa!

This is an interesting thread as it reminds me of an argument I as a manager have presented to upper management...WE NEED SIESTAS. It's been proven that corporations who have installed Nap Rooms are seeing far better PM production and creativity, less industrial accidents and "sudden" afternoon illnesses that people leave work for so I'm sure Spain needs to be proactive if their phasing out siestas and not providing alternatives. Perhaps a Zen-like atmosphere with an Iberian flair?!?

I agree with Karen. Naps are a proud (if hidden)tradition among great thinkers in America. Edison took catnaps in his lab, and John F. Kennedy took a nap every afternoon as President. Viva de Siesta!

I hate to be a negative nelly, but the problems karenwishart describe would be avoided if people got a good 8 hours sleep. Since I'm in law school - and I remember this from high school and college too - it's amazing to me how my classmates brag about how little sleep they need. I'm not surprised that lady in the article nods off on the subway - if I only got 6 hours a night, I'd fall asleep anywhere.

Guess what, Wendy-- It doesn't get any better once you become a practicing lawyer!Billing 2000 hours a year doesn't leave much time for sleep. One of the many reasons I'm getting out of that field. I wish you luck.

Oh dear...

I agree nature documentaries on TV are really good for siesta, but the best thing is Tour the France, I don't know why but even in the most excitant days you always fall slept, and then wake up when it finish!! It's like Dali's one, a siesta of 20 minutes.

Another article emerged on exactly the same topic just today. This one's from The New Zealand Herald ( CLICK HERE for the article) and printed today (actually, TOMORROW their time):

Rude awakening in Spain’s siesta culture
21.12.04

MADRID - Globalisation is killing off Spain’s civilised custom of the siesta, according to a Spanish citizens’ advice group.

With so many multinational companies operating in Spain, business people cannot disappear from their desks for hours, says the Independent Association. Instead, office hours must end earlier.

The life-enhancing after-lunch snooze may not be so easily banished, however.

Spanish Governments have long tried to bring the nation’s idiosyncratic hours in line with the rest of Europe. But many Spaniards consider the idea of sitting at their desk between 2pm and 4pm simply ludicrous.

Serious business is done face-to-face over lunch. And then, obviously, a little downtime is needed before the rest of the afternoon.

"Few Spaniards take a siesta these days and studies show we sleep about one hour less every day than the average European," says Fernando Buqueras y Bach, director of the Independent Association. That is dangerous, he adds. Spaniards have high rates of accidents on the road, at home, and in the workplace.

Without a break, the Spanish working day can be exhaustingly long. "Morning" lasts until 2pm, 2.30pm or even 3pm (which Spaniards call "midday") before the long lunch. It’s unusual to return to the office before 5pm, but you are expected to stay until 7pm or even 8pm.

In the summer many don’t work at all in the afternoons, in a delightful scam called "intensive hours", which means workers are supposed to work from 8am until 3pm and can spend all afternoon by the pool - or asleep ...