The Globe’s Sleepy Coverage

You’ll have to excuse us if we look a little rough around the edges today. Not only did we stay up late on a Sunday night for no good reason (we’re talking to you, Celtics) but we’ve been reading the Globe for the past few days, and it’s making our eyes feel heavy.

That’s not a dig on the dull style of the paper of record. It’s just been writing a lot about the science of sleep lately.

On Saturday, Boston.com teased this item that appeared in the Sunday Ideas section. In case you needed any assistance after late-night sports viewing, the Globe teaches readers how to nap. Seriously.

Our bodies are programmed for two periods of intense sleepiness: in the early morning, from about 2 to 4 a.m., and in the afternoon from 1 to 3 p.m. This midday wave of drowsiness is not due to heat or too many fries at lunch. . . Rather, it arises from an afternoon quiescent phase in our physiology, which diminishes our reaction time, memory, coordination, mood, and alertness.

Zzz. . . huh? Oh, sorry. We dozed off for a minute there, because we don’t need no stinking guide to napping. Just give us space under our desks and 10 minutes without someone’s cell phone echoing through the entire office and we’re good.

If that didn’t get you, the paper continues its coverage with an article about scientists who are examining the sleeping habits of animals to find out why humans need sleep.

Some researchers contend that the brain of a human varies so much from the brain of a fruit fly, say, that each experiences sleep completely differently. Birds, for example, sleep with one hemisphere of their brains at a time. While some sleep experts say their behavior shows that it is possible to benefit from sleep without involving the entire body, others argue that it may not count as sleep at all.

Yawn.