No one checks the time between lunch and sunset there. I took notes. The notes say: “do this at home, badly, anyway.”
There, the afternoon is the main event. Work fits around it. Shutters close, the street empties, someone is asleep and nobody is apologising for it.
I brought the idea home and could not manage the ceremony. My version is smaller: an hour with the curtains half drawn and the phone in another room. It looks nothing like a siesta. Nobody would film it.
It works anyway. An hour is long enough for the day to change gear, and short enough that nothing falls apart. The email will still be there. It always is.
I am not recommending a timetable. The moment you put a nap in a calendar it becomes an appointment, which is a different and much sadder object.
An afternoon rest belongs to the structure of the day, the way the walls belong to the house. You would not call a wall a reward. You would not put a wall in your diary. Try the hour for one week and count what you lose. I have never found anything missing afterwards.
Take one afternoon this week, close a door and do nothing behind it for an hour. Tell nobody in advance.