It’s too bad that so much productivity in America is lost due to under sleeping. If only we could nap at work. What if every office had a room full of beds that could be used for 20-45 minutes for an afternoon nap? How much productivity would we gain? How much happier would people be? These are interesting questions to ask, and difficult results to measure.

A while ago, I read about a company called MetroNaps that provided sleep furniture for offices. On their website, they quote the medical director of Proctor & Gamble with a positive review of their service. While the MetroNaps pods cost around $8000, a much cheaper solution can be implemented with a simple bed or couch, and perhaps a free laundry service that provided clean sheets.

Of course, having a place to sleep is one thing, but getting acceptance from your colleagues that you will be taking a nap, something that may be judged as lazy, is quite another. For that we need a culture shift, not easy to achieve, but it has to start with education about the benefits of napping. I look forward to more studies that better quantify the productivity hours gained from a simple mid-day nap.

More links on napping:

• sleepfoundation.org
• talkaboutsleep.com
• riranproject.com