How to sleep in a hammock.
You're probably thinking that this has to be a joke. After all, who needs to be told how to sleep in a hammock? It's easy, right? All you do is lie down in the hammock and fall asleep, right?
Well, the tricky part is knowing how to lie down in the first place. If you're reading in the hammock, or just want to get off your feet for a while, then you can do whatever makes you comfortable for the moment. However, if you want to fall asleep, you must take care to lie down in a position that will not hurt your back when you wake up. The trick lies in removing as much of the curvature as possible.
Most people, when trying to sleep will look like this:
__
| | ( ) | |
| | (__) | |
| |--____ \ / ____--| |
| |'-, ------___________-/---- ,-'| |
| | '-, ,-' | |
| | '-, ,-' | |
| | '-_____________-' | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
This is because they are treating the hammock as if it were a mattress; they have their head at one end, their feet at the other, and their body is in the middle of the hammock. This is where they make their mistake. Instead of centering yourself on the hammock, lie down as diagonally as possible. This will twist the hammock, removing much of the arc. This is infinitely better for your back. If you are lying down properly, it will look somewhat like this:
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| |'-, .--''',| |
| |`. '-, .--' ,- | |
| | '. '-, .--' --' | |
| | '. '-.-' ,-' | |
| | '. '-. ,-' | |
| | '-_____;.-' | |
| | | |
Now that you know how to sleep in a hammock, go find two nice trees and take a nap. You'll feel a lot better, because hammocks seem to have a magical resting property.
I apologize for the craptacular ASCII art. I tried to draw a person in the lower hammock, but it just wasn't working out. Still, you can see what the hammock itself will look like.