Sleeping on the job is a good thing

More employers are discovering that nap times can help increase productivity, even though it still runs counter to the macho, Type A approach to work. From Inc.:

Of course, midday siestas date back centuries as a means of escaping the afternoon heat in hot climes, as in Spain. But several recent studies reveal medical explanations for why naps increase productivity, too. In 2010, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley confirmed that napping can improve the brain's ability to retain information, noting that a middle-of-the-day reprieve "not only rights the wrong of prolonged wakefulness but, at a neurocognitive level, it moves you beyond where you were before." Two years earlier, at the University of Haifa in Israel, researchers found that naps help "speed up the process of long term memory consolidation," while the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in Atlanta concluded in 2007 that a short catnap during the day "may be a useful strategy to improve not only mood but also job satisfaction".