That's Fit

It's 9:30 in the morning. If you wake up at 7:00 every day, you've now been churning and burning for a solid two and a half hours. Shower: check. Shave: check. Get dressed: check. Eat breakfast: check. Drive to work: check. Log on: check. Begin task number one of 1,000: check. Respond to 25 emails: check. Leave first meeting of the day: check. And that just about brings you to where you are now at 9:30. If you're already feeling like you need a nap, it's clearly for good reason.

What are the chances that your boss will let you curl up under your desk for twenty minutes to catch some Z's? Well, if you happen to work for any of the growing number of companies in the U.S. that are allowing employees to take power naps, your chances are actually quite good.

Newsweek reports that 37 percent of Americans nap during the day, citing a survey by the National Sleep Foundation. What's more, about a third of people surveyed stated that their employer permitted naps, and that more than a quarter said they would sleep at work if they were allowed to. While this may seem counterproductive to improving employee output, it actually offers both employees and employers long-term benefits.

It seems like we're hearing a lot about napping at work lately, dare we hope it's the beginning of a soon-to-be widely accepted practice? I highly doubt it, but that doesn't mean you can't still try it every once in awhile (discreetly, of course!) to rejuvenate and refresh yourself so you get more done.

Of course nobody is recommending you take a nap right at your desk or cubicle (wearing those sunglasses with the eyeballs painted on the outside), but if you have the chance to get away over your lunch hour or in the afternoon then that's another story altogether. And although napping might sound like a simple enough thing to do, there are things you can do to nap in the best way and get the most from the whole experience. If you don't have one of these MetroNaps Energy Pods (hilarious!) to create the perfect sleeping environment, then maybe a "Meditation Nap" would work just as well? It's about relaxing and getting the most out of just a few minutes of shut-eye, from as little as 5 to as many as 20 minutes. Read the instructions on how to take a Meditation Nap, give it a shot, and let us know how it works for you!