Bosses may balk at the prospect of employees sleeping on the job, but research indicates that everyone from security guards to musicians may benefit from napping. Just a half hour of sleep is critical to maintaining or improving performance in repetitive tasks such as screening baggage or practicing a musical score. Napping restores cognitive abilities that deteriorate when the visual cortex is overloaded with information, according to Sara Mednick, M.S., a graduate student in psychology at Harvard University and an avowed napper. Although the study focused on repetitive visual tasks, Mednick affirms that anyone can benefit from a short nap.
Mednick asked two groups of students to identify patterns projected rapidly onto a screen. Each group was then allowed to nap for either one half hour or one full hour between tests. A third, nap-deprived group showed a progressive decrease in performance. Conversely, subjects who had slept for a half hour continued to perform at baseline after their first nap, and those who slept for an hour performed the task much more efficiently when they resumed the test.
