What better way to end the month than sleeping in public? Each year on Feb. 28, you can do so without judgment. If napping is on your agenda, you don’t have to rush back to your bed to get a power nap in. Just find a bench in the Carl Hansen Student Center, a booth in Café Q or even a spot on the Quad and get some well-deserved rest.

National Public Sleeping Day is a day to take a power nap or even a deep slumber anywhere in public. As college students, we all deserve it. But the real question is, why are we the only country where this is regularly frowned upon? People in the Italian and Asian cultures regularly take afternoon naps. Not only do they voluntarily take regular naps, but they are also encouraged to do so. This is referred to as “Inemuri,” in Japanese culture and can be translated to “sleeping while present,” according to The New York Times.

After a hard day at work or between meals, a nap is well-earned. In America, we are expected to work a nine-to-five job or spend our day in classes with very little time to rest our brains. Naps have been proven to be beneficial for brain activity, with results including enhanced memory, improved mood, increased alertness and an overall refreshed feeling, according to OpenColleges writer Saga Briggs. I think it is time that we all get the naps we deserve. Our performance in classes would improve tremendously and so would our quality of work on the job.

As hardworking college students, we are expected to run from class to class all day, do homework in our free time, somehow manage to have a social life and get a full night of sleep. Don’t we deserve some R&R?

College students should be getting more than eight hours of sleep a night, according to researchers at Stanford University. The reality is that many of us are not reaching this requirement. This causes “sleep debt,” or the adding up of hours lost on valuable sleep, according to Stanford University researchers.

If asked the question, “How are you today?” I guarantee one of the most common responses of college students would be, “I’m tired.” National Public Sleeping Day is the perfect opportunity to catch up on some rest without having to rush all the way back to your dorm to take a snooze. And who knows? Maybe it will catch on and napping in public will become the norm here at Quinnipiac.

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Here are some tips for the perfect nap on National Public Sleeping Day: 

Find somewhere quiet to snooze or throw in some headphones! The best naps are in silence.

Make sure your belongings are secure. You wouldn’t want to wake up to find that your laptop is gone. Maybe even use your backpack as a pillow!

Keep your nap between 10 and 25 minutes. Sleeping longer than this has different effects on the brain and isn’t always beneficial. Sleep inertia is one of the biggest issues that can occur by sleeping longer than the standard napping time, according to The Huffington Post.

Some of the best spots on campus to nap on National Public Sleeping Day might be:

On the Quad, depending on the weather

The benches or comfy chairs in the basement of the Center for Communications and Engineering

A booth in Café Q or student center

In the Arnold Bernhard Library

In the Lender School of Business lounge chairs