Power Napping at Work to Improve Concentration and Performance

“I usually take a two hour nap between one and four”

Yogi Berra

Last year when I was cycling with my wife in the Tuscany region of Italy we both realized that the afternoon siesta is just part of the culture there. I don’t tend to take naps but I do head into NREM pretty quickly when I am sitting on things that move (I’ve even been accused of napping during the ride “Pirates of the Caribbean” at Disneyland).

While napping isn’t a widespread occurrence at U.S. workplaces, one-third of respondents in the National Sleep Foundation’s (NSF) 2000 Sleep in America poll said they would nap at work if it was allowed. NSF’s 2005 poll found that more than one-third of America’s adults take two or more naps a week, and these last an average of 50 minutes.

According to an employee benefits survey of 600 American companies conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management, 6% of workplaces had nap rooms in 2011, a slight increase from 5% the previous year. Even more suggestive, a 2011 poll of 1,508 adults by the National Sleep Foundation found that 34% of respondents say their employers allow them to nap at work, and 16% said their employers also have designated napping areas.

Napping and Performance

My colleague and friend, Dr. Mark Rosekind, who is a member of the National Safety and Transportation Board, has studied the impact of napping on both concentration and performance. He has shared with me that many people don’t realize the body’s clock is set with two distinct dips in alertness within a 24-hour period: one at about 2:00 am and another at about 2:00 pm, corresponding to the midday dip. Fighting off the urge to sleep during these times is tough– especially for someone already suffering from sleep deprivation.

While the Director of the Fatigue and Countermeasures Group at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), he conducted an experiment in which he instructed NASA pilots to take short naps when possible during long haul flight operations (the average nap was 26 minutes). Mark found that compared to long haul pilots who did not nap, the napping pilots had a 34% boost in performance and a 54% boost in alertness that lasted for 2-3 hrs.

A  2010 study by Matthew P. Walker, the head of the Sleep and Neuroimaging Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley suggests that an afternoon nap might even make you smarter.

It’s seems thatThe longer you’re awake, the more difficult it is for your brain to store new information of any type. An afternoon nap seems to refresh this short-term memory and free up space for new information.   In the study, Walker and his colleagues asked 39 college students to learn a series of new names and faces at noon and match the faces and names a few minutes later. They then performed the same test at 6 p.m. the same day. A group of students who took a 90-minute afternoon nap at 2 p.m. performed significantly better than non-napping students, who had a serious decline in their memory test scores.

The End of Siestas?

Across Europe, most government workers are done with work and out of the office by 5 p.m. or 6 p.m., with lunch breaks averaging between 30 minutes and an hour. But under a law that went into effect in 2006, Spanish government ministries will close by 6 p.m. as part of a package of measures designed to help Spaniards balance jobs and families.

The national government has launched a campaign to break the traditional midday meal and nap. The government enacted regulations requiring that all federal agencies enforce a 45-minute lunch break, beginning about 12:30 p.m., and then send their workers home by 6 p.m. The hope is that the private sector will follow suit.

Napping and Health

A new study of 23,681 individuals free from coronary heart disease, stroke or cancer was followed up for 6.32 years after analyzing the frequency and duration of daily naps. Those subjects who reported occasional napping had 12% lower coronary deaths, whereas those systematically napping at 37% lower mortality ((Naska, A. et al. (2007). Siesta in healthy adults and coronary mortality in the general population. Archives of Internal Medicine, 167, 296-301)).

Midday napping (siesta) is common in populations with lower coronary mortality but this is one of the first studies to show a strong relationship with this behavior and long term health (after controlling for physical activity, diet and other factors)……zzzzzzzzzzzend….Be well….

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)