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The term siesta means the sixth hour, which corresponds to six hours after sunrise. The fact that the midday nap is still common in Spain, especially during the summer months, is due to two key factors: the high, energy-draining temperatures and the fact that lunch in Spain is the main and largest meal of the day. Recovering and “digesting” these two things with a short nap after lunch is also recommended by doctors. Medical studies have shown that short “power naps” of around thirty minutes can reduce the risk of a heart attack.
For visitors to Spain, the siesta can sometimes be inconvenient. Halting all work between 2 and 5 p.m. (the most common time for a long lunch and siesta) and, in particular, the closure of shops, can be frustrating for tourists’ daily schedules.
The good news is that the siesta is no longer standard practice in Spain. Especially in areas frequented by tourists, businesses realize that long afternoon breaks are bad for revenue. Increasingly, siestas are the exception rather than the rule. The same applies to urban areas, where lunch breaks are increasingly aligned with countries such as the Netherlands.
For the large agricultural sector, however, the situation is different. For farm workers, a long rest during the hottest part of the day is not a luxury but a necessity. It is therefore logical that the nap originated there and is still observed by many people.
After the Spanish Civil War, there was a revival in the number of people taking the three-hour siesta. The country’s economy was so poor at the time that many people had two jobs to survive. The siesta was ideal for resting and traveling to the second job.
Although Spaniards accept that the siesta is gradually losing ground, there is also cautious resistance to this trend. In 2015, the town of Ador in Valencia made headlines worldwide with an initiative to promote a siesta for all residents of the agricultural town. The mayor asked everyone in the community to stay indoors and observe silence between 2 and 5 p.m. A police officer announced the siesta every day over loudspeakers half an hour in advance.
