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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

#31

Post by lutorm »

In "The Promise of Sleep", the author talks about naps and getting tired in the afternoon, and his conclusion is that the only reason people get tired in the afternoon (which is when your clock-dependent alerting is at its lowest) is because they are sleep deprived. If you are well rested and don't have sleep debt, you should not get tired at that time.

Having consciously tried to get enough sleep over the past 2 years or so, I believe he's right. These days, I barely notice any afternoon dip and when I do, it's when my sleep has been disturbed for some reason.

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#32

Post by davidmurphy »

Power Sleep, by Cornell sleep researcher Dr. James Maas, transformed my idea of naps. I highly recommend the book. He recommends short "power naps" to quickly get in some rest. The key is to wake up before your body goes into a deep sleep cycle. For me, this means approx. 15-20 minute naps when needed. It truly is astounding how much this rejuvenates you. These naps were insanely helpful back when I was in college.

Buy on Amazon: http://amzn.to/bvumKg

WorldCat (library catalog search): http://bit.ly/c3NMpF

I just wish naps were more accepted in the corporate world. When I have a startup again, I'd love to have a "nap" room for employees. Google has sleep pods: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-sleep-pods-2010-6

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#33

Post by sprout »

Okay, so do any of these studies control for the number of hours the students - sorry, I mean subjects in the trial - sleep each night? Without looking at the data, I'd hazard a guess that all these studies show is that if you don't get at least 7 hours of sleep or so, you're less productive.

And I'd further suggest that this is only particularly relevant to pilots, where the burst of energy you get following a nap might be worthwhile, since you don't need sustained energy to pilot, only enough to manage the difficult landings and takeoffs.

For programmers, you need sustained concentration, so you need a solid seven hours of sleep per night (and from what I've read, especially for those under 25, 9 hours is a much better figure, and it will significantly improve your capacity to learn.)

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#34

Post by davidmurphy »

wccrawford wrote: post #8

So they recommend taking your own time and taking a nap to give your employer more productivity? I'm all for being productive on company time, but I don't sacrifice my own time for it. And I certainly don't go so far as to hide things I do from the company, like leaving the premises to go take a nap.

I imagine there are a fair number of people out there who are "in the closet" about being nappers -- ie, they take naps in their car during lunch break, etc.

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#35

Post by kilian »

davidmurphy wrote: post #32

Power Sleep, by Cornell sleep researcher Dr. James Maas, transformed my idea of naps. I highly recommend the book. He recommends short "power naps" to quickly get in some rest. The key is to wake up before your body goes into a deep sleep cycle. For me, this means approx. 15-20 minute naps when needed. It truly is astounding how much this rejuvenates you. These naps were insanely helpful back when I was in college. B…

I often did this to and from work on the train, it's an amazing quick fix for when you're feeling drowsy.

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#36

Post by guynamedloren »

"Napping won't begin to take hold in companies until leaders recognize that it's not the number of hours people work that determines the value they create, but rather the energy they're capable of bringing to whatever hours they work."

This stood out to me as the most important statement in the article. The problem is that a large chunk our society is based upon measurable quantities, whether they make sense or not (see: 40 hour work weeks, GPA, etc). Unfortunately, human potential energy is not quantifiable (yet).

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#37

Post by jsharpe »

TGJ wrote: post #14

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…

The idea is that you "waste" 30 minutes, but then get that back in the form of heightened productivity for the last 3 or 4 hours of work.

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#39

Post by carbocation »

Psyonic wrote: post #29
carbocation wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

What would the baseline be? Not told whether to nap or not? I imagine that's the same as non-napping, because most people don't nap.

Baseline would be the test that you performed prior to the flight.

Take 100 pilots. Test them all right before flying. Instruct 50 to nap during the flight. Instruct 50 not to. Compare each individual's response time after the flight to their response time before the flight. Aggregate by group. Perform a t-test (or another appropriate test) asking whether or not the difference (after minus before) is the same in both groups, or if one group performs better.

Re: Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

#40

Post by mattm »

>> I wrote at home, in the mornings, in three separate, highly focused 90 minute sessions. By the time I finished the last one, I was usually exhausted — physically, mentally and emotionally. I ate lunch and then took a 20 to 30 minute nap on a Barcalounger chair, which I bought just for that purpose.

>> When I awoke, I felt incredibly rejuvenated. Where I might otherwise have dragged myself through the afternoon, I was able to focus effectively on work other than writing until 7 pm or so, without feeling fatigued.

I actually work on a very similar system except it is 2 3x45 minute sessions instead of 3 90-minute sessions. Like the author though, I find I can't do anymore programming after 4.5 hours of productive work but after taking a nap , I have lots of energy to do other activities that interest me.

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