Dr. Sara Mednick, above, is a leading 'guru' of the value of napping on the job. She is currently affiliated with the Dept. of Psychiatry at UC San Diego and she has also participated in sleep research at the Salk Institute and Harvard University. Dr. Mednick’s research has contributed to understanding how napping can improve human performance. Her work with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG), has actually pinpointed areas of the brain that underlie these improvements.

Click the link below to read one of the published reports of Dr. Mednick's nap research:

The restorative effect of naps on perceptual deterioration
Summary: As life in our culture becomes more demanding, average nightly sleep is decreasing in all segments of the population. 'Power naps' - brief periods of daytime sleep lasting an hour or less - improve alertness, productivity and mood.

Productivity

Tackling the Sleep Deficit

Why is it that the less we have of something, the more we seem to crave it? Millions of sleep-deprived people including students, doctors, new parents, caregivers, truck drivers and others, suffering from stress, burnout and anxiety would probably agree that getting more sleep is high on their wish list. And productivity is one of the first things to diminish when you're sleep deprived.

Sleepwalking on the job

Ever wonder how astronauts stay awake when they have to cope with irregular sleep schedules? Taking a power nap with a duration of 15-30 minutes, especially during the afternoon slump time period, can improve alertness and enhance productivity on the job according to The National Sleep Foundation (NSF). However, the NSF also reports that fewer than one in five U.S. adults reports that napping is allowed at work. Colonel Gregory Belenky, a leading military sleep expert, reports that MRI brain imaging reveals that a sleep debt decreases the entire brain's ability to function - most significantly impairing the areas of the brain responsible for attention, complex planning, complex mental operations and judgement, as reported on ABC News 20/20.

Not all businesses are as accepting as Yarde Metals, where a 'napping room' is one of the perks. Company president Craig Yarde openly states, "we can say without questions that napping contributes to higher sales, earnings, productivity, and efficiency." Avoid long naps over 30 minutes during the day to avoid interrupting your regular sleep-wake schedule.

"Many executives take brief naps in the office to recharge their batteries. Why not allow all workers to have the same privilege? Employees will be more alert, more productive and less accident prone", says Dr. James Maas, a nationally known sleep expert and past chairman of the Dept. of Psychology at Cornell University.

Less Sleep > Less Productivity

The "Sleep in America" polls conducted periodically by the NSF corroborate that Americans are working more and sleeping less. A recent survey found that 63 percent of people get less than eight hours of sleep a night and about 31 percent get less than seven hours. Over half the American workforce reports that sleepiness on the job interferes with the amount of work they get done and diminishes the quality of their work by about 30 percent.

"When people are sleep deprived, they make errors. Survey participants made simple mistakes organizing information that could have been prevented if they were fully alert. For employers, the costs are felt in terms of low productivity, reduced profits, high rates of staff turnover and increased costs of recruiting and training replacement staff. For governments, the costs include health care costs and insurance payments as well as the loss of income at the national level." - William A. Anthony, Ph.D, director of Boston University's Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation

Research to the rescue

The time has arrived to not feel guilty about taking a power nap anytime or anywhere you need it - and there's a growing body of research to support this. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grantees Alan Hobson, MD and Robert Stickgold, Ph.D and their colleagues at Harvard U. have coauthored sleep studies published in journals such as Nature Neuroscience. They report that midday naps reverse information overload and 'prevent burnout' in this NIH News Release.