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Falling asleep on the job can get you reprimanded or fired. We’re urged to remain awake,
alert, on our toes, even if we find ourselves going through the somnambulatory 9–5
motions. Coffee and soft-drinks are liberally dispensed in the workplace for this purpose.
Shut-eye at your desk is bad form. Worse yet, when American Airlines pilots recently
admitted to napping in their cockpits, the FAA went into full-scale, fail-safe
alert.
To maintain a healthy and active balance in one’s life, however, nothing should be
as important to ensure non-meltdown from a hectic schedule as catching an afternoon
siesta. Power napping can range from a ten-minute head-on-the-desk respite to a
full-on siesta. Reagan was a presidential power napper, clocking an average of two
hours per daytime downtime. Kennedy was known for ten-minute snoozes.
Bedtime for Ironman
Among his triathlete colleagues in Boulder and San Diego , six-time Hawaii Ironman
Triathlon champion Mark Allen was as well-known for his steely determination during
racing and training as he was for zoning out in the afternoon. That was his quiet
period, his milk-and-energy bar time, when his body and mind craved rest and
relaxation from all the intense physiological and mental stress he was putting his
body through. Allen, the Zen-master, was also the zzz’s-master.
Pro triathlete Mike Pigg also makes a religion out of his regimen of rest in the
afternoon. He sleeps nine hours at night, an hour or two in the late afternoon. He
swims, bikes, runs, eats, sleeps. The body needs time to repair the damage done to
it during heavy training. Rehab occurs on a molecular level, with torn muscle tissue
being repaired, nutrients carted to the needed areas, cells greedily replenished.
Strength and endurance is established through rest and recovery. Otherwise, the
body breaks down, just like a car that needs to be regularly serviced.
Too often, the signs of physical fatigue are overlooked, which can lead to injury.
In extreme sports such as adventure racing, when athletes must push themselves for
consecutive days and nights, with virtually no sleep, the teams that perform the
best are usually the ones that actually take mandatory naps. World-champion Team
Eco-Internet won the Discovery Challenge Eco-Challenge in Australia this way.
They slept soundly for a few hours each night during the early stages of the
week-long event, but later picked off all the other drooping and fatigued teams
which had tried to gain time initially by bypassing sleep during the first half of
the competition. It was not quite the fable of the tortoise or the hare, since
Team Eco-Internet is comprised of some of the healthiest and fittest athletes on
the planet.
One team member, Ian Adamson, also holds the 24-hour world-marathon kayaking record
(230 miles along a stretch of the Yukon River), said that the most difficult aspect
in setting this Guinness Book of World Record feat was merely staying awake. “I had
to sing songs and do everything I could not to fall overboard, I was that tired.
The paddling was the easy part.”
Endurance bike races like the Race Across the America are known as sleep-deprivation
contests. Imagine driving your car across America in eight days? How about cycling
those 2,800 miles in the same amount of time? Winners average just a few hours of
sleep per night. Without these pit-stops, the body would flat, with the mind
suffering hallucinations, and possibly psychotic episodes. (Amnesty International
lists being forced to stay awake over extended periods of times as a form of
political torture.)
Shut-Eye at the Office
So, in the more sedate confines of the workplace, why should catching some shut-eye
be looked upon so unfavorably? Co-workers might scoff, give you dirty looks, think
you are sleeping off the effects of the previous night. More often than not, an
afternoon nap is the perfect antidote to brain fatigue, which can be caused by
exhaustion, sleep deficit, or having that big power lunch.
Brief, mild periods of low-blood sugar are normal during the day, especially if
meals are not eaten on a regular schedule. Feeling jittery and agitated are common
symptoms, and is alleviated once food is eaten. But this blood-sugar swing cycle
can be repeated if one is carbohydrate intolerant and continues to snack on sweets
and high-carbohydrate foods (usually the fare found in vending machines). Snacking
will then lead counterproductively to snoozing.
Some enlightened companies have set aside napping areas, an adult version of
daycare centers, where workers can rest their noggins in a sleepytime setting.
Perhaps, these “sleep centers” will be as commonplace as the office kitchen or gym.
With eyestrain a common malady in the wired workplace, giving some slack time to
one’s eyeballs during regular scheduled breaks can contribute to enhanced productivity
and overall alertness.
Taking naps at one’s desk should be encouraged. Except for one side effect: snoring.
That will get strange looks and a neighborly nudge from a co-worker. The concept
of sleeping on the job should be turned on its head; the sleepless-in-society stigma
needs be removed. An antenna with a Do Not Disturb sign might hover over one’s
computer monitor. No harm here.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, the average American sleeps six hours
and 57 minutes per night and suffers from 80 sleep disorders (the most common one
is insomina). That 4% caffeine in coffee of cola that stimulates your heart and
respiratory systems during the day and helps you stay awake on the job, just might
be doing you an injustice over the long run.
The good news about sleeping on the job is that it also burns 50 calories an hour.
Not a bad way to have a quiet and sedentary workout.
Step aside, Bill. It’s Our Turn Now
My Turn
Bill’s right, of course—we need naps. A nap should be an inalienable right, like milk
and cookies, bequeathed to us by the Founding Fathers, mentioned permanently in
the Bill of Rights.
But Bill didn’t go far enough. Naps should be mandated for all employees (and bosses)
in this hard-charging, insomniac, Silicon Valley lifestyle we’ve created. In fact,
let’s revive a venerable south-of-the-border custom—the siesta—and institutionalize
it. Every working day, from 2 to 3 p.m. is hereby set aside for mandatory naps in
the workplace. Bring your own rug and pillow just like in kindergarten. Thumb
sucking is allowed. So is burying your face in a blanky.
Soon the custom will permeate the world of business and sport. Bill mentioned airline
pilots who doze off in midflight—why not? Let’s make the skies truly friendly. Every
triathlon should have a nap between the bike and run—the time not to be deducted
from the overall. Look for a sub–eight-hour Ironman soon. RAAM? Fours hours a
night snoozing in a motor home by the roadside and a eight-hour nap every afternoon.
After all, when the racers get to the midwest, a thousand miles of cornfields is
enough to put anyone to sleep. Why fight it?
The ’99 Tour de France features two rest days instead of the customary one for the
purpose of making the race “easier” and discouraging the rampant drug use that
has brought the sport to the edge of extinction. The Tour of Redemption, it’s
billed. Why not a mandatory nap break at kilometer 120 in every stage? It would
discourage early breakaways and give Phil and Paul (Tour commentators) more time
to relate anecdotes in their peerless British accents. Adrian Karstens can nap,
too—although there are some who argue that he’s napping even when on the air.
Then there’s baseball. Forget the stretch, how about a 7th inning nap? On second
thought, baseball is such a yawn, maybe no one would notice.
I’m all in favor of naps, too. Nap time is my fondest memory of kindergarten,
next to that time we put a live frog in Mrs. Dinkle’s desk drawer. Come to
think of it, Mrs. D. took a nice long nap immediately afterward—and didn’t come
back for the rest of the school year. Besides, if napping was good enough for
President Reagan, then it’s good enough for me. If he could do what he did
for the country on two hours a day, just think how much better off we would’ve
been if he’d napped for 16 hours a day. Ditto napping super-athletes like Mark
Allen, Mike Pigg, and those paragons of common sense and moderation known as
adventure racers. Hey, I’d nap too if my job was to work out all day.
Unfortunately, there’s this little voice inside my head that won’t let me.
This voice belongs to my boss, who sneaks up behind me whenever my head droops
deskward and yells, “GET BACK TO WORK SLACKER!”
No to Napping:
The workplace should not encourage lazy-bones, oh-I'm-so-sleepy behavior from
employees. It sets a bad example, sort of like group narcolepsy. Instead of
workers’ strikes, we’ll see sleepers’ strikes. I can just see human resources
tackling the issue of napping as part of one’s employment contract. Let’s
see, “you want two week’s paid vacation, plus 30 minutes of napping downtime
per day, and stock options....” Sleeping, like other things such as sex,
should remain at home, hopefully behind closed doors.
Of course, pro triathletes have the luxury to take naps during the days.
They don’t hold down real jobs. They can afford the luxury of taking
afternoon naps. Why indulge others in this indolent pasttime?
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