The NOD to MIDDAY NAPS

Companies will soon be trading their coffee mugs for lounge chairs...Introducing the Power Nap

CATNAP FACTS: DID YOU KNOW THAT: Napoleon Bonaparte napped because he was a chronic insomniac and could only sleep about three hours a night. (Notice the first three letters in Napoleon's name...) Thomas Edison napped in lieu of sleeping at night. He believed that sleeping was a waste of time, "a deplorable regression to the primitive state of a caveman." but he napped frequently and for long periods. Albert Einstein felt that his daily naps 'refreshed the mind' and made him more creative. During World War II, Winston Churchill scheduled his cabinet meetings around his daily catnaps. Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton have been known to nap frequently. Salvador Dali napped in his armchair, holding a spoon over a metal pan on the floor below. When Dali hit REM Sleep and lost muscle tonus, the spoon would fall from his grip, bang the metal pan and awaken him.

Is It A Good Idea to Nap? It depends. If you have difficulty falling asleep at night you should avoid taking daytime naps. Your daytime sleep, especially if it's longer than 30 minutes, could be causing your nighttime insomnia. Naps are a good idea when you cannot manage to get one continuous period of sleep at night that is long enough to enable you to be fully alert all day long. So, if your hectic lifestyle doesn't permit you to get adequate nocturnal rest, than take a nap! Thirty percent of Americans nap more than four times a week.

Is There An Inborn Tendency To Nap? Research indicates that the human body is inclined to rest in the middle of the afternoon as well as at night, even after adequate nocturnal sleep. A heavy lunch does not make you sleepy, it simply unmasks the physiological sleepiness that's already in your body. The "post-lunch dip" in alertness occurs whether or not food is consumed. Our natural sleep pattern is biphasic: We have a significant drop in body core temperature and alertness at night, and a similar but smaller drop in the middle of the day. It's then that you need a nap the most, especially if you have slept poorly the night before.

So Why Nap?
Reduce stress! Siesta-loving Europeans and Latin Americans are more relaxed. They usually score better on stress tests than North Americans.
The risk of heart disease is shown to be greatly reduced by regular 30 minute naps.
Naps greatly strengthen the ability to pay close attention to details and to make critical decisions.
Naps taken about eight hours after you wake have been proved to do much more for you than if you added those twenty minutes onto already adequate nocturnal sleep.
Timing Is Everything!
A nap should be about 15 to 30 minutes in duration. If you nap longer than thirty minutes, your body falls into deep sleep, which is difficult to wake from and when you do, you'll feel groggy (that's why Dali wanted to wake up before he hit REM stage).
If you are severely sleep-deprived and must nap longer than 30 minutes, then you shouldn't sleep less than an hour and a half, which is a complete sleep cycle. WARNING: Don't expect to be fully alert until at least an hour after that nap.
A 15 minute nap is enough time to turn the nervous system off and can recharge the whole system!
If you are going to nap in the middle of the day, BE CONSISTENT and make a habit of napping everyday. An irregular napping schedule might disrupt your internal body clock. Napping only on weekends is like dieting or exercising only on weekends to make up for a week of overeating.
Brief naps taken daily are healthier than sleeping in or taking very long naps on the weekend. Be careful about taking that long nap on a lazy Sunday afternoon- you may find it hard to get to sleep that night and getting up on Monday to start the new week.
Late afternoon napping isn't healthy- it delays your falling asleep time in the evening and begins to shift your biological clock.

Getting the Nod at Work: The notion of sleeping on the job isn't very well received by industry. Companies equate napping with laziness and you might get chastised or even fired if you're caught trying to catch a few winks. The fact is that today, nearly everyone is sleep deprived and sleep workers, irritable, are more likely to make mistakes and cause accidents. This costs money and disrupts lives. A coffee or a cola break perceived as a legitimate part of the workday, does provide momentary feelings of alertness, but consumption of caffeine will be followed by feelings of lethargy and reduced REM sleep at night. So why not attack the problem directly and get some needed sleep. If corporations accept the concept of napping, errors, accidents and illnesses will be reduced and the bottom line improved. WHAT COMPANIES LOSE IN TIME THEY CAN MAKE UP IN INCREASED PRODUCTIVITY- IT'S A WIN-WIN SITUATION- HENCE THE POWER NAP!!! Here's how to make naps work for you: Get rid of all the distractions. Turn of the ringer on the phone, close the door, and turn of all the lights. Put a sign on your doorknob, "I'm POWERNAPPING." Avoid caffeine after that first morning cup of coffee. Consider your environment. Furniture has recently been designed to aptly suit office naps, including power-nap executive chairs that recline, massage your head, and envelop it in darkness. Desks transform into cots and chairs have built-in audio decks for playing relaxing music and alarm clocks to wake you up. Lying down is the optimal position. If not, lying back in the chair with your feet up is the next best way. Have a pillow handy for a comfortable head rest. Or you can just sit at your desk and put your head down for a few minutes rest. Remember to limit your nap time! Many executives worry that if they put their heads down they will fall asleep and not wake up for hours. Not to worry. "Power Nap" alarm clocks like the one pictured at right are available with a button preset for naps of a specific duration.

Advice for parents of newborns: Exhausted parents of newborns should take naps when their infants nap. Don't try to use the free time to catch up on household chores or work if you are already seriously sleep-deprived. A well-rested caregiver is a better caregiver.

So, what are you waiting for? Quit drinking all that coffee and talk to your boss, give him or her some literature or tapes on sleep deprivation and performance, or invite a sleep expert to give a seminar at your company.

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