Sleeping on the Job

North Americans are not a people of the siesta. There is a tendency to associate afternoon naps with laziness and non-productivity. Latin Americans and some in European cultures take a different view. In Mexico and Greece, for example, it is customary to close businesses between noon and about 4:00 pm - siesta time. Recent studies are showing that if you can take a 15 to 30-minute nap while at work in the afternoon, you’ll be more alert, more energetic, happier doing what you do, more productive and therefore more likely to get ahead. Napping on the job is not yet a trend but there is serious talk in academic circles about the merits of ‘power napping’. By some estimate, the average American collects an annual 'sleep debt' of 500 hours - subtracting from an assumed norm of eight hours a night. Two out of three Americans get less than eight hours of sleep a night during the work week, according to a recent study by the National Sleep Foundation in Washington. Forty percent say they're so tired that it interferes with their daily activities. Sleep researcher William Anthony, a professor of psychology at Boston University, says fatigue is a significant problem in modern society. He says sleepiness is a leading cause of auto accidents, second only to drunkenness. All that drowsiness costs an estimated $18 billion annually in lost productivity. 'We have a simple message,' says Professor Anthony. 'People should be allowed to nap at their breaks. The rationale is a productivity one - workers are sleepy, and when they're sleepy on the job they’re not productive.'  Some companies…