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Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

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Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#11

Post by elbenshira »

A friend and I have this running agreement that if we ever do a startup together, we will force all employees to take a nap after lunch.

As a college student, I understand how useful naps are. Students live in short bursts of concentration during the day (e.g. when in class), and that 30 minute nap between classes is a life saver. Heck, a lot of our conversations involve talking about naps in its intricate details. Like many great entrepreneurs say, the most important features and ideas will be brought up over and over again over time. And napping is one of those great, haunting ideas.

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#12

Post by pbhjpbhj »

rubyrescue wrote: post #4

When pilots are given a nap of just 30 minutes on long haul flights, they experience a 16 percent improvement in their reaction time. Nonnapping pilots experience a 34 per cent decrease over the course of the flight. does that sentence make sense?

I think what they're saying is that:

"Pilots who nap for 30 minutes on a long haul flight improve their reaction time by an average 16% versus their initial reaction time. Pilots who don't take a nap experience a decline in their reaction times making their reaction to stimulus 34% [?] slower by the end of the flight."

People tend to say a persons "reaction time has decreased" when they mean the time taken to react has increased, reaction time is given as if it's a score rather than a time period.

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#14

Post by TGJ »

I suppose it would get interesting as far as scheduled hours are concerned. Does the 30 min nap have to occur in your lunch our? Is there an extended 30 min attached to the 1 hour lunch? Would that mean that companies would work 30 min less a day or would the work day have to be 30 min longer? Would companies realize that the efficiency improvement would offset a need to have a longer day since people are doing more in 7 and 1/2 hours as opposed to the non-nap 8 hour?

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#15

Post by borneogamer »

I'd like to attest to the power of naps myself. There were several times when I was assigned an application that had a function with extremely broken code and trying to fix it in frustration. After a meal and a nap, an elegant solution present itself to me almost always, which requires less coding and easier to implement.

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#16

Post by carbocation »

rubyrescue wrote: post #4

When pilots are given a nap of just 30 minutes on long haul flights, they experience a 16 percent improvement in their reaction time. Nonnapping pilots experience a 34 per cent decrease over the course of the flight. does that sentence make sense?

If these are both "relative to baseline" and not "relative to one another," then yes (except for spelling and grammatical mistakes).

Of course, as stated, not taking a nap apparently gives a greater improvement, so presumably they didn't actually mean "decrease" and instead meant "increase."

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#18

Post by bherms »

In psychology class we studied various effects on learning (eg: environment, state of mind, etc). One thing that I remember learning was that sleep caused the brain to retain information better, so they recommended napping after studying and other similar things. If you're in a job where you're learning new things often, a nap could also help you learn more quickly and retain the lessons long-term.

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#19

Post by thedjpetersen »

elbenshira wrote: post #11

A friend and I have this running agreement that if we ever do a startup together, we will force all employees to take a nap after lunch. As a college student, I understand how useful naps are. Students live in short bursts of concentration during the day (e.g. when in class), and that 30 minute nap between classes is a life saver. Heck, a lot of our conversations involve talking about naps in its intricate details. L…

I have never really napped during my time here in college, but it sounds intriguing. I have always looked as time as a bit of a commodity and napping seemed like a way to lose a chunk of the day.

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#20

Post by etal »

rubyrescue wrote: post #4

When pilots are given a nap of just 30 minutes on long haul flights, they experience a 16 percent improvement in their reaction time. Nonnapping pilots experience a 34 per cent decrease over the course of the flight. does that sentence make sense?

1. In the middle of a long flight, compare pilots' reaction times just before the nap to just after the nap. Result: After the nap, reaction times are 16% shorter.

2. Over the entirety of a long flight, test pilot reaction times initially, then at regular intervals until the end of the flight. Result: Without a nap, final reaction times are 34% slower than initial reaction times.

Yes, it's a little bit of a factoid soup, and citations would have been nice.

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