In my May column (“Sleep on It”), I discussed how adequate restful sleep is crucial to achieving and maintaining wellness. No matter how resolved you may be to maintain good rest habits, executives and professionals will always encounter times when a full night’s rest is impossible. Late night business meetings, obligatory social functions, red-eye connecting flights, contract negotiation meetings, labor disputes, non-stop supervising of the grape crush or being on-call can all be counted on to take away sleep time (and to lessen the effectiveness of sleep due to carryover stress). This inevitably leads to decreased efficiency, more mistakes, impaired judgment, mood changes that can carry over into delicate customer relations and an increased risk of accidents. According to surveys and research conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, fatigue due to inadequate sleep is pervasive in the American culture. Among its findings are that:
• The average adult sleeps less than seven hours a night during the workweek.
• 33 percent of adults sleep only six and a half hours nightly.
• 40 percent of adults admit the quality of their work suffers when they’re sleepy.
• 68 percent say their ability to concentrate is diminished by sleepiness.
• 19 percent report making mistakes due to sleepiness.
• Sleep-deprived drivers cause approximately 100,000 car crashes annually.
• 33 percent of adults surveyed would nap at work if allowed.
Drinking espressos or taking over-the-counter stimulant drugs can be effective for a while, but soon exacerbate the basic problem of an increasing sleep debt. A much greater degree of impairment eventually sets in when fatigue can no longer be offset by stimulants.
So the question becomes, what can an executive interested in staying well and at peak efficiency do to compensate for sleep sacrificed to the exigencies of modern life? Enter the recently popularized concept of power napping.
Know your nap
A power nap is, essentially, a catnap that’s been reconceptualized into a more marketable form, becoming a career vehicle for scientists and researchers in the burgeoning field of sleep disorders. A power nap is a brief snooze, usually 15 to 45 minutes in length. Its goal—and claimed effect—is to maximize the benefits of sleep with a minimum time investment.
The benefits of a power nap are variously claimed to include restoration of alertness, improved mental efficiency, reduction of errors, reduced nighttime sleep requirement and repayment of accumulated sleep debt at a “discounted rate” (in other words, recovering your sleep debt without full hour-for-hour “payback”).
Some power nap proponents link their claims to a phenomenon known as “polyphasic sleep,” which is a scheme in which a full 7 to 9 hour night of sleep is replaced by a series of 20 to 45 minute naps taken on a rigid schedule. It’s claimed this can reduce human sleep requirements to only 2 to 5 hours in each 24-hour day. Power naps, however, are generally only taken once per day and are intended to make up for recent sleep loss or, as some claim, to keep your brain’s synapses operating at top efficiency. Power naps are recommended for information workers whose long work days often lead to information overload and cumulative mental fatigue.
Advocates of this sleep pattern recommend various durations for a power nap. Many have a precise time they say is optimal, but such claims are often made without good scientific evidence. People who regularly take power naps usually have a good idea of what duration works best for them.
Some people take power naps out of necessity. Many famous people have practiced this habit, including John F. Kennedy, who trained himself to take 5- to 10-minute naps throughout his arduous daily schedule, sometimes even taking a brief break during Cabinet meetings.
Put to practical use, someone who doesn’t get enough sleep at night and is drowsy at work may catch up on sleep during his or her lunch break. Others may prefer to take regular power naps even if their schedule allows a full night’s sleep. To avoid becoming too groggy after a nap, experts recommend naps be limited to no more than 15 to 45 minutes to avoid falling into deeper, slow brainwave sleep.
Plan your nap
There’s actually a skill to productive power napping. Using caffeine and/or eating high-sugar and/or high-calorie, fatty foods during the hours before a nap can prevent you from falling asleep even when you’re tired. And trying to nap when your mind is racing is basically a waste of your—or your employer’s—time.
On the recommendation of productivity consultants, a number of Fortune 500 companies have begun encouraging power napping for executives and administrative workers by setting aside certain areas of the office for employee naps. The vast majority of United States companies, however, aren’t so enlightened.
In New York, a company called MetroNaps has capitalized on the research into power naps by opening store-front napping salons, first in the Big Apple and now with franchises in several cities. Haggard office workers drop in during lunchtime or during breaks and pony up $14 to use specially designed napping pods (see picture) for a rejuvenating power nap. Many customers are so pleased or needful of the results, they buy monthly memberships and reserve their “power pod” for a regular time each day.
Use your nap wisely
Like many popularizations of scientific research, there’ve been a rash of overstated claims for power napping. Some have gone so far as to claim a nap a day will let you sleep less at night and not have to pay for it. While it’s true that a few people can get along with very little sleep (witness yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur, who sailed around the world while taking only short breaks for naps), it’s still necessary for the vast majority of us to get a solid seven to nine hours of high-quality sleep on a regular basis to maintain normal mental and bodily function.
One NASA study found that, while naps improve memory functions, they don’t aid basic alertness. In seeming contrast, Harvard sleep researchers in one study found that people who took a 60- to 90-minute nap at 2 p.m., following a night of sleep deprivation, did just as well at certain perceptual and cognitive tasks as people who had a good night’s sleep. What power nap promoters don’t mention when citing this research is that the Harvard study tested people with naps for only one 24-hour period. Other studies have shown that people who sleep only six hours a night or less, even if they nap, show deteriorating performance over time.
It’s not just the quantity of sleep, it’s also the quality of sleep that determines how much rest is obtained. It’s essential to obtain a combination of “short-wave sleep” and R.E.M. (i.e., dreaming) sleep to maintain efficiency of learning and memory. To underscore this, it should be noted that, at the end of her race, Ms. MacArthur said she never wants to repeat her experience of prolonged sleep deprivation ever again, naps notwithstanding. It was a very unpleasant experience after only a few days.
So, in the wellness quest, should we take naps? The research—and a huge amount of popular experience (200 million siesta-takers can’t be wrong, can they?)—clearly shows napping delivers benefits in everyday performance. Many people will benefit from a short nap from time to time. A very few people will never need a nap. And there are many who will always benefit from a power nap in the mid- to late-afternoon. Ultimately, like most things, it’s beneficial to become good at napping and to learn what is the right amount of nap time to keep you at your mental peak. But never conclude napping can replace the sound restful sleep you should get on as many nights of the week as you can manage.
Now, I’m just wondering when the first MetroNaps franchise will open in downtown Santa Rosa.
