Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps

This article is especially important for places like HN where the "founders never sleep" myth runs rampant.

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.<p>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.

So they recommend taking your own time and taking a nap to give your employer more productivity?<p>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.

Disengaging in other ways are also very effective.<p>For example, if you're having trouble with a tough business/programming problem, a stroll through an art museum can be very beneficial. Personally, I like to walk along the lake (Chicago) or walk through parks and let my mind wander.

Am I the only one who cannot nap? If I take a nap in the middle of the day I wake up feeling worse than when I started.

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.<p>Buy on Amazon: <a href="http://amzn.to/bvumKg" rel="nofollow">http://amzn.to/bvumKg</a><p>WorldCat (library catalog search): <a href="http://bit.ly/c3NMpF" rel="nofollow">http://bit.ly/c3NMpF</a><p>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: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-sleep-pods-2010-6" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/google-sleep-pods-2010-6</a>

My dad is a TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) doctor. He told me that every hour slept before 12AM count as 2 times as effective. I tried it out for a few month going to sleep around 8/9pm. I usually find myself waking up around 1am. super alert and energized for several hours where I will do a lot productive writing and creating till 5/6am. Then I'll sleep for 1 more hour. And for the rest of the day I'm totally energized with no afternoon dip. I do think our current sleeping patterns is a bit limiting.<p>Here is a TED talk that touch upon the subject as well:<p><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/jessa_gamble_how_to_sleep.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.ted.com/talks/jessa_gamble_how_to_sleep.html</a>

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.<p>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.

<i>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.</i><p>does that sentence make sense?

Can anyone else here not nap? I've never in my life been able to nap, despite trying. I only ever fall asleep when I'm very very tired and then I have a long deep sleep.

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.<p>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.<p>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.)

"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."<p>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).

&#62;&#62; 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.<p>&#62;&#62; 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.<p>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.

Here's a very simple algorithm to find your optimal napping time.<p>1. Buy a device from myzeo.com<p>2. Go to sleep at night, and review the times that you entered deep sleep<p>3. Take a nap during the day wearing the zeo, then figure out the time you enter deep sleep. That might be N minutes since you turned the device on.<p>4. Then, nap for a little less than N minutes.<p>If you determine that you start going into deep sleep at 30 minutes in #3, then you should set your alarm for 26-28 minutes. You'll feel refreshed.

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?

Unfortunately for me, if I fall asleep in the middle of the day, I am going to sleep for 2-3 hours, sometimes longer. Sleeping for less than that is pointless; it can sometimes take me at least 15-20 minutes to get to sleep. And, I'm not sleep-deprived; I get plenty of rest these days, having already burned my body out on all-nighters coding in elementary, middle and high school. I can't do it anymore.

Napping is the crucial key for me while handling tough programming problems. Before taking a nap, I try to understand the boundaries and the parameters of the problem and try to visualize the solution I want to arrive. Then I take a nap (20 - 30 mins). When I wake up 90% of the time I have the solution in my head.<p>I think any startup which encourages its employees to take a nap is at great advantage.

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.

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.

I agree with this article, but this seems like a pipe dream in the current corporate environment. In my experience, most corporations demand long periods of work with very few breaks, let alone 60 to 90 minute napping periods.<p>Let's hope studies like this can spark a discussion within mainstream corporate culture.

Ever since I read "Brain Rules" by John Medina (which advocates taking an afternoon nap) about a year ago I've been wanting to 'implement' it, but I have failed to do so yet. 3PM is just not a convenient time for a nap at all.<p>Is there anyone that does take naps in the afternoon?

I work at an international Chinese company and what surprised me first was that almost all of our Chinese engineers take nap after lunch (even the ones who come for temporary business trip) I have an impression that taking naps is heavily practiced in Chinese corporate culture...

Anyone know if taking these short naps during the day affect one's ability to fall asleep at night?

Totally agree. This post by daniel tanner <a href="http://danieltenner.com/posts/0017-how-to-nap.html" rel="nofollow">http://danieltenner.com/posts/0017-how-to-nap.html</a> should be a practical complement to this.

Reading this has made me sleepy!<p>I'm interested in this concept of mid-day rejuvenation. However, which works better, naps or meditation? Or does each serve its own purpose?

Marginal result - taking an hour out of an 8-hour day is 12.5% drop right there. Hard to make that up in the remaining time, with a small percentage increase in productivity.

Asking your employees to waste time in commuting, and then promoting a nap "to improve productivity"? Looks shortsighted to me.

I'm confused how this was submitted because I submitted the <i>exact</i> same article five days ago: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1714358" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1714358</a><p>Regardless, I think space would be the biggest issue. I don't think most companies could afford to have sleeping pods like Google.

20 to 30 minutes doesn't seem sufficient to make a big difference, especially if you're not able to drop right off. And exactly <i>where</i> is your typical office worker supposed to take this nap?

Power naps are great... and have been for eons. Yet Harvard has just figured it out? LOL. Masters of the obvious.

Thank you but no !!<p>Let me get this straight : you want to force your views and fads upon my lifestyle and make it a formal policy, all the while increasing my working hours because now I have to take a nap during working hours and I still have to put in my 8 hours? And I get no compensation for the increased hours. No Thanks !!1