Joseph Herscher likes to nap.
But sometimes it’s not always a convenient thing to do ― no matter how tired he feels. For example, there are all those times he’s commuting.
“I live in New York City and I’m on the train for like an hour at a time,” he told The Huffington Post. “Especially in the afternoon when I’m kind of sleepy ... There’s something about the rocking motion of that train that puts me to sleep.”
For the uninitiated, napping on New York City subways pose dangers of a unique flavor.
Herscher had the bad experience recently of dozing off on a train and falling into the person seated beside him.
“They were shitty about it. And I thought, there’s got to be a better way,” he said.
So because he happens to be an inventor, he created the “Subway Sleep System” that lets him snooze peacefully without disturbing his fellow passengers. (No guarantees it won’t turn heads, though.)
He told us he added some high-quality elastic to the inside of the hat to make the device work ― and he still needs to be careful not to miss his stop.
Problem solved? Not quite.
Herscher said he also tends to want to doze off in the middle of the afternoon. (That’s probably because all of us tend to want to doze off between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. when our circadian rhythms naturally dip.)
But when he does nap, he tends to fall asleep for longer than he wants to...
”I thought it would be better to have a device that woke you up after a certain amount of time,” he said.
Some of us tap a few buttons on our smart phones or wind up our clocks. Herscher had a different solution.
He invented and built the “Power Nap Machine,” which allows him to sleep for the exact time he wants to and even has a cup of hot coffee waiting for him when he opens his eyes.
Luckily, Herscher lives above a 99-cent store, so it’s pretty convenient to pick up the extra materials he needs for projects like this, he said.
Watch him demonstrate how both machines work in the video below. (Catch the full course of the “Power Nap Machine” starting 53 seconds in.)
Sarah DiGiulio is The Huffington Post’s sleep reporter. You can contact her at sarah.digiulio@huffingtonpost.com.
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