Social workers should be allowed to nap

Napping is good for you. Cats know it. Dogs know it. Babies know it. So, does that mean social workers should be doing the responsible thing, and factoring a daily snooze into their workflow? Hmm, perhaps.

Let's explore the science. A study by NASA found that dozing for just 26 minutes improved performance by 34% and alertness by 54%.

Countless studies say the same thing. In short: there is simply no way, however you look at it, that napping is bad for you or makes you worse at your job. Quite the contrary, in fact.

10-20 minutes is not a long time. What else can you do in that time that bolsters your performance by a third and your alertness by a half? The answer, of course, is ingest mountains of caffeine supplemented with lashings of sugar. In theory this is even better than napping, because you can continue working without stopping.

However, caffeine, sugar, and highfat foods that artificially prop us up when we are tired, don’t address the fundamental problem – that we are tired. You can’t put off the inevitable forever. You’re going to hit the wall.

So there you have it - Albert Einstein believed fervently in taking a nap to keep his brilliant mind in slick, running order. So did JFK, amongst other leading lights.

So why not take a nap?

It comes down to appearances, right? A worker sitting at their desk chugging an espresso and furiously typing away looks busy, efficient, and dedicated.

Her colleague - resting her head on her desk, a light spittle pooling from the corner of her mouth and slowly gluing a court report to her cheek - does not.

Put simply, we don’t like the idea of napping on the job no matter what the evidence says. We assume it means a person is lazy and work-shy.

After NASA published its findings, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that air traffic controllers should be given nap time to improve their performance. Fatigue had contributed to many fatal air crashes over the years, so this seemed like a very sound idea.

The then-US Transport Secretary Ray LaHood didn’t think so, though. He went on record saying workers shouldn’t be paid for sleep – he suggested hiring more managers instead to ensure they stayed awake.

This highlights a wider problem. We are governed, not so much by science and best practice, but by how things appear.

Let's be clear. Undoubtedly, unquestionably, you will be better at your job for taking a snooze, ideally between 1pm and 3pm when humans experience a natural lull.

Everything in social work these days is about performance management, so you’d have thought that incorporating a 10-20 minute activity - totally free, wholly enjoyable, benefits health and wellbeing, and leaves the worker a third more productive - would be ‘on point.’ And with so many of us homeworking these days, we have easy access to a bed. Who’s going to argue with that?

Probably those who aren’t getting enough sleep, and therefore aren’t thinking clearly.

By Matt Bee