Forget the power lunch - the power nap is the new trend in business and industry.

Waking up to the fact that fatigue can hurt the bottom line, more and more employers are encouraging workers to sleep on the job.

"We need to understand that there are certain times of the day and night that people need to have a sleep," explains Sandy Coughlin, manager of health and disability claims for Providence Health Care in Vancouver.

"We recognized this and decided that we are going to help people to get a rest so that they can work safer."

Photo courtesy of MetroNaps
The sleep pod is on its way to becoming a fixture in the business office as companies discover the benefits of power naps.

Vancouver's St. Paul's Hospital is leading the way with Canada's first high-tech sleep pods.

Used regularly by doctors, nurses and other staff, the leather EnergyPods resemble first-class airline seats and have a privacy hood that comes down to shield the sleeper. The pods block out noise, vibrate when it's time to wake up and even come equipped with an iPod dock.

"We've had them for almost a year now and staff love them," Coughlin says. "They're able to go to sleep more quickly and they wake up refreshed."

While the pods may be unique in Canada, they're becoming a more common sight in offices south of the border.

The manufacturer, MetroNaps, has already sold about 100 pods so far this year - mainly to large corporations and high tech-sector companies.

"Business is going really well," says Arshad Chowdhury, CEO of MetroNaps. "We're growing and we're looking forward to expanding our client base, particularly amongst hospitals and corporate offices."

Far from being a firing offence, Chowdhury says napping at work is being encouraged at some companies, although they may be hesitant to admit it.

"Many companies that allow napping don't publicize it. The stigma remains linking napping to laziness and in some fields, like lawyers and consultants where clients are billed by the hour, clients don't want to hear that they're napping," Chowdhury says.

One notable exception is Intuit Canada in Edmonton. The software company has special nap rooms for employees, each of which is outfitted with single beds and alarm clocks. Recently voted one of Canada's best employers, Intuit promotes its nap rooms in job ads - along with other amenities and perks geared at "employee wellness."

Far from the old culture of skipping breaks to get more done, sleep experts agree that napping can increase an employee's productivity.

"There's a great deal of research that shows napping improves mood, performance, safety and productivity," explains Dr. Kimberly Cote, director of the Brock University sleep research laboratory in St. Catharines, Ont.

"Managers who are responsible for the bottom line may think that paying someone to nap means they're not working and there's no productivity, but that's the simple way of looking at it.

"You won't be productive if you're tired," Cote adds. "You'll take longer to do things, you'll have lapses in attention and you'll make mistakes."

And that's costing businesses big bucks.

A study released earlier this year in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine found that workplace fatigue was not only common, but costly.

It estimated the pricetag for fatigue was US$136 billion a year in the United States in terms of lost productivity alone. The majority of that cost, 84 per cent, was a result of reduced performance while at work, rather than employee absences.

The study also found that fatigue affected almost 40 per cent of the 29,000 workers polled.

The fatigued workers lost an average of 5.6 hours of work per week, compared to 3.3 hours for their non-fatigued counterparts.

It's not surprising, given that we're getting less sleep than ever before.

According to a 2005 National Sleep Foundation poll in the U.S., the share of people getting eight or more hours of sleep a night on weeknights dropped from 38 per cent in 2001 to 26 per cent in 2005.

This year's National Sleep Foundation poll, which focused on women, found 60 per cent of U.S. women say they only get a good night's sleep a few nights per week or less; 43 per cent claim that daytime sleepiness interferes with their daily activities and performance.

"People are intentionally cutting down on the amount of sleep they get to make more time in our busy world for work and other responsibilities," Cote says. "It's a serious problem in our society that people aren't taking their sleep seriously."

The Canadian military has long understood the importance of combating fatigue - and napping plays a key role.

"Napping is certainly helpful," says Michel Paul, a scientist and fatigue expert with the Department of National Defence. "I just came off of a trial on a submarine and the guys were using it there and it's definitely encouraged."

The submarine trial is looking at how the watch schedule has an impact on performance - and whether longer shifts of sleeping are needed. Paul, who has spent a decade on fatigue and circadian rhythm research for the military, says it comes down to an issue of safety and operational efficiency.

"If you're managing a sophisticated weapon system, like a submarine for example, you don't want your people fatigued and operating as if they're impaired by alcohol."

U.S. space agency NASA has also employed naps and found that they can have a positive effect on the memory and overall output of astronauts. History would also suggest that napping can improve productivity, if notable nappers Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy are any indication.

But to get the most benefit from a workday snooze, experts emphasize that it's important to keep it short and time it right.

Cote says early afternoon, when we're naturally tired about 2 p.m., is the best time to take a nap because you'll fall asleep quickly and it will be restorative. A brief nap of only 10 to 20 minutes is all that's needed to see benefits - any longer and you'll risk sleep inertia or sleep drunkenness, which leaves you feeling groggy.

"The other thing to take into account is that not everybody is a napper," Cote adds. "Even if a company allows the opportunity to nap, not everyone will benefit, but the vast majority will see benefits from a short nap."

So as more companies set up nap rooms, often called "wellness" or "refreshment" rooms to avoid any negative connotations of napping, sleep experts hope the stigma associated with sleeping on the job will finally be put to bed.

"I hope the belief that napping is bad for business or represents laziness is something of the past," Cote says. "I think more and more businesses are starting to change their views of that."

Back at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver, they don't need any convincing.

"When you're working long hours, you need your nap," Coughlin says. "You need sleep. The countries that have siestas have it right."

(Tess van Straaten can be reached at tess@businessedge.ca)