Viva la Siesta!

Seven years ago, task-management software company Redbooth compiled four years of data comprising 1.8 million projects and 28 million tasks, finding that Monday is the most productive day of the workweek and Friday the least productive. They also found that work activity peaks at 11 a.m. and starts declining after lunch, to the point that almost no one is doing anything at 4:00 p.m.

Does any of that surprise you?

I’m a morning person, and I often put in several hours of productive work before 9:00, which when I’m working from an office, is when colleagues start to trickle in, clients start to come online, and it all falls to pieces. But like many people, I also find that sometimes I encounter a dip in productivity, and energy, after lunch.

A big part of the explanation is the amino acid tryptophan, which is found in many foods, and helps to produce serotonin, which may induce drowsiness. I guess the technical term is “food coma”.

I’m a light eater at lunchtime, and rarely fall into a food coma, but if I don’t get my eight hours (or close to it) of beauty sleep, I find myself fighting the urge to nap in early afternoon.

Though actually, usually I don’t fight it.

A few years ago, I worked for a company that expected employees to take overnight (redeye) flights when they traveled on business. Everyone followed this rule, including the CEO, and the idea was that you would not “waste” a day traveling. Made sense, but I found that some flights were too short to permit a good night’s sleep.

I flew often between Singapore and Tokyo, which is around a six-and-a-half-hour flight, and by the time the plane reached cruising altitude, and subtracting the descent, the best I could hope for was around four and a half hours of sleep, not really enough to see me at my best. The flight I usually took landed at Haneda Airport at around 6:00 a.m., and often I was able to get to the Tokyo office by 7:00.

In the office, the managing partner had a room he called “the library”, which contained a shelf of paperbacks, some portion of his extensive collection of wines, and crucially, a beige three-seater couch.

Nearly everyone in the office appeared to me to be afflicted by “boss fear”, but I didn’t have that problem, and regularly nipped into “the library” to grab a 40-minute afternoon snooze that would recharge my batteries after arriving on the redeye.

One day, I opened the door and saw the partner lying on the couch, taking his own nap. He opened an eye, said, “Ten more minutes, mate, and the couch is yours,” and in 10 minutes, it was my turn.

The interesting thing about napping is how polarizing it is. The non-nappers disparage naps: “Sweet dreams, Grandpa.”

And there are those who believe the CEOs and self-help authors who tell you they wake up at 3:30 a.m., complete an Ironman triathlon before breakfast, and have accomplished more before noon on a Monday than you do in a month. Uh-huh.

Some cultures, on the other hand, embrace the nap.

Spain, of course, is famous for its siesta, but globalisation and air conditioning have dragged most Spaniards unhappily onto the hamster wheel of 10-hour work days, late-night emails and stress-induced insomnia with the rest of us.

And Japan, famous for karoshi (death by overwork), has always had a culture of napping, even in public. The Japanese word for this is inemuri, which means “present while sleeping.” Aside from the hundreds of thousands of Japanese who sleep on trains and buses during their daily commutes, it’s not uncommon to see your Japanese colleagues with their heads on their desks, napping during their lunch hours. [I’ve seen this many other places in Asia as well.]

For those who need to be a bit more pampered, a few years ago a handful of napping cafés opened up in Tokyo, with the Nescafé Sleep Café offering the napping public a range of options starting at ¥825 ($5.40). And at the high end of the scale, I know a wealthy Japanese woman who belongs to a “napping club”, a members-only facility near her office in central Tokyo.

What’s so great about napping?

Pretty much everything. A short nap can make you more alert, lift your mood, boost memory, ease stress and improve job performance. Sleep has also been shown to help the brain process information and memories; a nap can help you remember things learned earlier in the day, and to connect different pieces of information. A nap can even improve your physical health. a study found that people who napped for 45 to 60 minutes had lower blood pressure after undergoing mental stress.

One reason napping is so beneficial? Very few of us are getting the sleep we need at nighttime.

A U.S. National Sleep Foundation survey of 1,000 people found participants average six hours and 40 minutes of sleep a night on weeknights, even though they estimated they'd need roughly another 40 minutes of sleep to be at their best. Roughly one-third of those surveyed said they had fallen asleep or become very sleepy at work in the past month.

More than 90 percent of Americans say they have experienced a problem at work because of a poor night's sleep,, and one in four admit to shirking work-related duties for the same reason, either calling in sick or napping during work hours. In fact, 30 percent of Americans have admitted to sleeping on the job.

And it’s not just Steve in Shipping, and Bonnie in Accounts grabbing a few zees on the job.

In 2008, the pilots of a Go! airline flight were suspended after an investigation when it was suspected they fell asleep mid-flight from Honolulu to Hilo, resulting in their overshooting Hilo Airport by about 24 kilometers (15 miles) before turning around to land safely.

In 2024, the pilots of a Batik Air flight were suspended after an investigation when it was suspected they fell asleep mid-flight from Haluoleo to Jakarta, resulting in their overshooting Soekarno-Hatta International Airport by 388 kilometers.

On the ground, in 2007 four Italian air traffic controllers were suspended after they were caught asleep while on duty.

And in 2011, the lone night shift air traffic controller at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport fell asleep on duty. During the period he was asleep two airliners landed uneventfully, but in the weeks that followed, there were other similar incidents, and it was revealed that other lone air traffic controllers on duty fell asleep in the towers. This led to a new Federal Aviation Administration policy requiring two controllers be on duty at all times.

I’ve got more stories, but I’m just gonna close my eyes for a minute ...