First a confession:
After reading 100’s of books on management and productivity, and practising many of their suggestions, I want to say
“If there is one thing that will undoubtedly up your productivity, at work, and in life, it is to take a 15-30 minutes Nap at Work at Work when tired.”
Just to clarify, this Nap at Work is in addition to the 7 – 9 hours of night sleep we all require.
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First, the research
Do you know that in office, after coming at 9 am, by 4 pm you are working with 30% less attention and productivity?
Sara Mednick, a leading sleep researcher who focuses on the relationship between napping and performance, shares this and other insights in her 2013 TEDx talk.
Sara’s team brought well-rested people into their lab and gave them simple visual-memory tasks. Thereafter they tested them at 9 am, 12, 4, and 7 pm. The performance of these people declined as the day progressed. Cups of coffee did not help. By 4 pm it was down nearly 30% and continued to fall further as the day progressed.
Imagine taking decisions, sending angry emails, and attending meetings with 70% or less attention!
Her advice: Take a Nap at work. With a nap, the performance of the research participants went back to the 9 am level and sometimes exceeded that!
Working in a Metro City
In Mumbai— and I am sure in other metros too— my schedule for years was:
6.30 Wake up
7.30 Leave for Office
9.00 Reach office
7.30 Leave for home
9.30 Reach home
11.30 Go to sleep
We humans (and animals) are not built for this monophasic life; one sleep period, and then an 18- hour wake time. Instead, we are biphasic or polyphasic; we need intermittent wake and sleep periods. A nap thus helps us to achieve our natural state.
Companies today, to motivate and energise staff, are investing in Gym, Meditation, Mindfulness, Games Room, and Yoga classes.
I would instead suggest: Ask your staff if they are getting enough sleep?
A Wakefit (India) 2019 study showed that “80 percent of people across the country felt sleepy at work between one and three days a week. … Around 20 percent felt sleepy all the time, while 51 percent felt drowsy most of the time.”
Sara Mednick is not the only one espousing the benefits of a nap. Given a choice between an extra hour of sleep or an extra hour of working out, experts recommend sleep.
If that is the case, why not just provide a napping room with some cots and couches? It will be the cheapest employee-welfare cost and the most effective.
How are Companies responding?
Realising the benefits of the nap, companies have started creating napping facilities for their employees. A partial list of such companies is as under (click on the link for details):
Google – Energy Pods
Hike Messenger (India) – Nap Room
Huffington Post – Nap Room
InMobi (India) – Nap Room
Nike – Sleep Room
Proctor and Gamble – Nap Room
PricewaterhouseCoopers – Sleep Room
RazorPay (India) – Nap Room
Zappos – Cots, Couches, and Nap Pods
What does a ‘Nap’ mean?
To fully benefit from a nap, we need to understand a sleep cycle. A typical sleep cycle has 4 stages:
Stage 1: Lasts 5 -10 minutes, is a transition period between wakefulness and sleep.
Stage 2: Lasts around 20 minutes, the body temperature drops and heart rate begins to slow.
Stage 3: Lasts 30-45 minutes, muscles relax, and deep sleep occurs.
REM (Rapid Eye Moment) Sleep: Lasts a short time, the brain becomes active, and dreams occur.
A good nap – sometimes referred as Power Nap – is anything from 10-30 minutes where you are in stages 1 or 2. Or—if you can afford to—taking a full sleep cycle of 60-90 minutes.
If you are disturbed or wake up in stage 3 sleep, you are likely to feel groggy and disoriented, as you would have been “pulled from” deep sleep.
Just for info, in a typical night sleep of 7-9 hours, we go through 4-6 full sleep cycles.
The above is a concise explanation of sleep stages. You might want to watch the following Ted talks for a better understanding of sleep and why it so beneficial:
Ted Talk: Sleep is your superpower
A comprehensive talk on the benefits of sleep by Matthew Walker, author of the bestseller “Why We Sleep”
Ted Talk: Why School should start later for teens
An insightful talk on why we need to let our children sleep more, and why schools and colleges should start late, possibly after 8.30 am.
Ted Talk: How to succeed? Get more sleep
A 5-minute, short and humorous talk on sleep by Arianna Huffington.
How to Nap
You will get the most out of your naps if you take a deliberate approach to them, rather than just nodding off at your desk.
1. In the absence of a Nap at Work, your best place to nap is either the lunchroom or your desk. Just put your head down and rest. After a couple of days explaining to colleagues that you are not sick, and are just taking a nap, people will stop bothering you.
2. Invest some money in your nap. Search around. Get an eye mask, nap pillow, neck pillow—whatever you think would be good. It will give many-fold benefits in the long-run. I know from experience that napping with your head resting on your knuckles on the desk is uncomfortable.
3. How to sleep fast? It will take some time to perfect. Most experts recommend thinking of calming scenery.
For me the following works: I think of myself as the CEO of a big company who has retired and now lives in a small town. He is lazing around in his small garden, away from all the news and buzz.
In the book ‘The Sleep Revolution’, Arianna Huffington recounts her favourite, “One image I like to use is that of a calm lake. Any thought, worry, or concern that comes up I think of as a stone dropping into the lake. There might be a ripple or two, but quickly the lake returns to its smoothness and calm.”
4. Set an alarm for no later than 30 minutes. You don’t want to wake up at 40 minutes in the deep sleep stage, remember.
5.If you have a long drive home from work, ensure you are well-rested. Drowsy driving kills. I recently insisted a relative take a 20-minute nap at my place before I allowed him to start a 2-hour drive back home.
EndNote
In the two months since I started researching for this article, I have actively taken naps—at times, strategically. Napping helped me sail through a fortnight-long social function where I had significant responsibilities, even earning me praise from a couple of elders. And it continues to help as I now regularly take naps.
My experience has been similar to what former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said
“Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination. You will be able to accomplish more. You get two days in one—well, at least one and a half, I’m sure.”
So, don’t wait for your company to provide you with a napping facility, create your own nap space. After all, it is your productivity that is on the line.
P.S.
If FOMO (Fearing of Missing Out) is preventing you from taking a nap or a good night sleep, replace it with JOMO (Joy of Missing Out).