If you will have an office job, this will likely have happened to you. You didn’t sleep enough last night. You’ve had a superb morning, but your to-do list is getting longer and longer. You move somewhat slower, full from lunch. Your computer screen becomes blurry. When you look out the window you see the sun setting within the afternoon and your eyelids droop. You resolve to sleep for a couple of minutes…
Occasionally it’s normal to go to sleep at work. in response to a brand new survey from Sleep Wellness Company Sleep doctor46% of respondents said they take a nap through the workday a minimum of a couple of times a 12 months. Additionally, 33% said they do it weekly – 9% once every week, 18% several times every week, and 6% every day.
Especially in the event you didn’t get enough sleep the night before, a 20- to 25-minute nap can enable you to recharge and tackle the remaining of your workday, says Sleep Doctor founder and clinical psychologist Michael Breus, Ph.D. But don’t make it a habit.
“While you may feel slightly sleepy between one and three in the afternoon—which everyone does, it’s due to a drop in body temperature after lunch—you shouldn’t take a nap,” explains Breus Assets. “If you’re getting the sleep you should be getting at night, you shouldn’t need a nap.”
Naps are a giant no-no for individuals with insomnia, Breus adds: “If you have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep at night, a nap will only make the situation worse.”
Nearly 1,300 full-time employees within the U.S. accomplished the survey in March Pollfish. Sleep Doctor didn’t provide any additional information concerning the respondents, corresponding to their shift schedules, work environment or socioeconomic status. Although the survey isn’t a scientific study, it offers insights into the habits of the country’s workforce post-pandemic, Breus says.
Half of the workers who work on site take a nap within the automobile
It’s not only distant and hybrid employees who get Z-cases during work hours. About 27% of employees who work onsite reported taking weekly naps within the office, in comparison with 34% of distant employees and 45% of hybrid employees. Personal staff took naps in these places:
- Automobile: 50%
- Desk: 33%
- Company-designated nap location: 20%
- Return home: 14%
- Bathroom: 9%
A nap at work is a luxury, he says Dr. Rafael Pelayoa clinical professor within the Department of Sleep Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine.
“There are a lot of issues with health disparities related to sleep,” says Pelayo Assets. “You can only take a nap at your workplace if you have a place to sleep and it is acceptable to your employer. That’s why many people don’t have a place to sleep at their workplace.”
Pelayo adds: “When you work on an assembly line and take the train to work, you don’t have anywhere to take a nap. Or if you are in a place where you don’t feel safe; Someone who is sleeping is vulnerable to being robbed or attacked.”
Men and younger employees usually tend to take a nap through the workday
More than half of male employees, 52%, told Sleep Doctor that they take naps during work hours a minimum of a couple of times a 12 months, in comparison with 38% of girls. It’s unclear whether the survey collected data on non-cis employees.
A majority of younger adult employees admitted to taking a nap through the workday, the next percentage than more experienced employees:
- 18-34: 54%
- 35-54: 46%
- 55+: 25%
Younger adults are inclined to suffer from sleep deprivation more actually because they’ve less control over their lives, says Pelayo Assets. They could have children who disrupt their sleep, older parents to take care of, longer commutes, and better demands on their free time.
“As people age and have medical problems, medical problems affect our ability to sleep, such as arthritis or chronic pain. But healthy older people sleep really, really well,” says Pelayo. “They sleep better than healthy young people. Healthy older people, the reason they ended up being healthy old people was because they had a good lifestyle.”
Nattakorn Maneerat – Getty Images
Remote employees take the longest naps through the workday
“Smart naps” of 20 to half-hour could make you temporarily feel more alert and alert, he says Alain Tiani, Ph.D.a clinical psychologist at Cleveland Clinic Sleep Disorders Center.
“This increases the likelihood that your brain will stay in the lighter stages of sleep and you will wake up feeling refreshed,” says Tiani Assets by email. “When we sleep for much longer periods of time, we may enter deeper stages of sleep that may be harder to wake up from. We also recommend napping as far in advance of your desired bedtime as possible to reduce the impact on your nighttime sleep quality.”
According to Sleep Doctor, greater than half of those working days keep their nap under half-hour:
- Less than quarter-hour: 26%
- 15-29 minutes: 27%
- 30-59 minutes: 24%
- 1 hour: 12%
- 2 hours: 9%
- 3+ hours: 3%
On average, 34% of distant employees and 31% of hybrid employees sleep greater than an hour, in comparison with 15% of employees who work onsite.
The survey data made it clear that naps are less common within the Western world than in other cultures Michael Grandner, Ph.D.Director of the Sleep and Health Research Program on the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tuscson.
“The fact that many people who work from home are more likely to take advantage of opportunities to sleep was very surprising,” says Grandner Assets by email. “It suggests that many workers would prefer to incorporate napping into their lifestyle if they could.”
Why do employees take naps at work?
The employees primarily cited a type of exhaustion as the explanation for dozing at work, while others were simply bored:
- Recharge: 62%
- Recover from poor sleep at night: 44%
- Dealing with long working hours: 32%
- Stress: 32%
- Boredom: 11%
- Avoid work: 6%
But why are they so sleep deprived? Ironically, the downside to napping at work is that 77% of survey respondents reported that workplace stress causes them to lose sleep every night. About 57% reported losing a minimum of an hour of sleep on a median night. Most cited work-life balance as their biggest workplace stressor:
- Work-life balance: 56%
- Challenging projects: 39%
- Long Hours: 39%
- Upcoming deadlines: 37%
- I’m having trouble attending to work on time: 30%
- Problems with the boss: 22%
- Interpersonal conflict at work: 20%
- Fear of dismissal or dismissal: 19%
Employees losing sleep attributable to work stress only to crave rest through the workday aren’t the norm, but their predicament is not rare either, Breus says Assets: “They somehow mess up their days and nights.”
Hybrid employees were probably to say work stress affected their sleep, at 88%, in comparison with 73% of on-site employees and 71% of distant employees. Additionally, more high-level employees, corresponding to CEOs and senior managers, reported losing sleep attributable to job stress (84%) than lower-level employees (71%).
Taking a nap at work can have an effect in your health and performance
Dozing at your desk can seem inconsequential on a slower day at work or whenever you think your boss won’t notice. But some employees have paid the value, data from Sleep Doctor shows.
Among those that nap, 17% miss appointments and 16% miss meetings a minimum of once a month because they sleep on the job. About 27% of employees admit to falling asleep during a distant meeting up to now 12 months, and 17% have experienced the identical thing on-site.
While only 20% of employees faced consequences, some were serious:
- Report to your supervisor more often: 62%
- Workload modified: 56%
- Sit down with the manager: 49%
- Exposed: 24%
- Fired: 17%
“Limiting sleep to a large nighttime window can help ensure you get enough sleep at night and therefore don’t need naps during the day, which could interfere with work or other responsibilities,” says Tiani.
Strategic daytime naps might be an efficient option to boost energy and productivity, in response to Grandner, but in the event you end up unintentionally falling asleep at work, it could indicate an underlying health problem.
“For people who are unable to maintain consciousness, I would recommend examining your nighttime sleep to determine whether you have untreated sleep disorders such as sleep apnea or whether you can take other steps to achieve healthier sleep,” says Gardner.
You also needs to seek the advice of your doctor in the event you don’t normally sleep but are experiencing unexplained fatigue, says Pelayo: “An abrupt change in your sleep needs would indicate a medical problem.”
More details about napping through the workday:
