There is nothing quite like a Power Nap to heal the mind and refresh the body. However, in America, napping during the day is reserved only for infants and the retired. If you’re young or successful in your middle-age you are required — by presupposition of your citizenry — to remain awake during the daylight hours even though there is strong medical research suggesting a Power Nap during the day can make you an even more efficient worker. Here’s the research as reported in a 2002 National Institutes of Health report entitled “Power Nap” Prevents Burnout; Morning Sleep Perfects a Skill:

“Burnout” — irritation, frustration and poorer performance on a mental task — sets in as a day of training wears on. Subjects performed a visual task, reporting the horizontal or vertical orientation of three diagonal bars against a background of horizontal bars in the lower left corner of a computer screen. Their scores on the task worsened over the course of four daily practice sessions. Allowing subjects a 30-minute nap after the second session prevented any further deterioration, while a 1-hour nap actually boosted performance in the third and fourth sessions back to morning levels.

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