From Winston Churchill...

I'm reading The Second World War by Winston Churchill and found his views on rest very interesting. Just after the war began and he was given the lead role in the British Navy he decided to take a nap everyday as soon after lunch as possible. Here's his explanation:

...I had recourse to a method of life which had been forced upon me at the Admiralty in 1914 and 1915, and which I found greatly extended my daily capacity for work. I always went to bed at least for one hour as early as possible in the afternoon, and exploited to the full my happy gift of falling almost immediately into deep sleep. By this means I was able to press a day and a half's work into one. Nature had not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without that refreshment of blessed oblivion which, even if it only lasts twenty minutes, is sufficient to renew all of the vital forces. I regretted having to send myself to bed like a child every afternoon, but I was rewarded by being able to work through the night until two or even later-sometimes much later-in the morning, and begin the new day between eight and nine o'clock. This routine I observed throughout the war, and I commend it to others if and when they find it necessary for a long spell to get the last scrap out of human structure.

Pretty well written! Couldn't have said it better myself.