Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Take a nap -- your heart will love it

Naps reduce stress, thereby helping keep your heart healthy, a study says. Naps can also boost workplace productivity.

By CHRISTINA REXRODE
Published February 12, 2007

At lunchtime almost every day, Nikki Adams steps out of the office, climbs into her SUV, sets the alarm clock on her cell phone, and takes a power nap.

Adams, who works full time and has two children, says those midday ZZZs help her feel refreshed for the rest of the workday.

“I fall asleep right away, instantly,” said Adams, 31. She is the customer relations manager at Hunter Douglas, an interior window design company in Pinellas Park.

She’s got the right idea: Some afternoon shut-eye, a new study says, is good for the heart.

The study, published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, is the largest to date on the health effects of napping. Researchers tracked about 24,000 healthy Greek adults for six years; those who napped for half an hour at least three times a week had a 37 percent lower risk of dying from heart problems.

The authors hypothesize that naps benefit the heart by reducing stress — which often stems from work, they point out.

You snooze, you win.

Brian Arndt, the president of Zeh Arndt Creative, said he wouldn’t mind if the employees at his St. Petersburg ad agency wanted to nap — a quick snooze can get the creative juices flowing. “Whatever it takes for them to get the best product,” he said.

In the corporate world, naps are often equated with laziness. But Arndt said that napping can make his employees more, not less, productive.

Kris Gregoire, the art director at Pyper Paul + Kenney advertising in Tampa, isn’t a regular napper. But he has zonked out on the couches in the waiting room a few times, after pulling all-nighters at the office to meet tight deadlines.

At that point, he figures, he’s entitled to a cat nap. And he’s never been asleep when a client walked in. “I guess at that point, somebody would wake me up and tell me to go sleep somewhere else,” said Gregoire, 28.

Arndt used to work for a Tampa ad agency where the boss shut his office door every afternoon for 40 winks.

“People thought it was funny, but he would wake up rejuvenated,” Arndt said. “Sometimes a nap is better than a quick run to Starbucks.”

Maybe his old boss was just being cosmopolitan: After all, daytime siestas are standard practice in many cultures.

A study by the University of Florida last year confirmed what anyone who’s ever been bar-hopping on a Tuesday night already figured out: A lack of sleep not only makes people tired and cranky, but also causes them to dislike their jobs and be less productive.

The study suggests that companies give employees flexibility in making their schedules and offer wellness programs on how to reduce insomnia.

John Boyle, the human resources director at Hunter Douglas, doesn’t mind that Adams sleeps in her car. But he also doesn’t expect to craft a formal policy on napping. He’d have a lot of sticky details to hammer out: How long a nap can you take? Do you really have to sleep, or can you just close your eyes?

“We offer great benefits,” Boyle said. “Sleeping at work isn’t one of them.”

Christina Rexrode can be reached at (727) 893-8318 or crexrode@sptimes.com.

[Last modified February 12, 2007, 20:59:55]