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CNN Live At Daybreak

New Harvard Study Says Right to Nod Off and Not Get Laid Off Missing

Aired May 27, 2002 - 06:24   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Oh my goodness. You're looking at the CNN control room where they're all sleeping. Wake up in there. Well, that secret is out. You know when they take a nap at work. They're supposed to be helping me.

Anyway, and America's workplace is sleeping on the job is an invitation to unemployment. But Harvard University psychologists have some eye-opening research about siestas. And our Bill Delaney says it may be a rude awakening for your boss.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): What's missing in the typical office routine? A new Harvard study has concluded the right to nod off and not get laid off.

SARAH MEDNICK, HARVARD UNIVERSITY RESEARCHER: My advice to employers is if you really want people to be working well you would give them the benefit of a nap to make them even more productive.

DELANEY (on camera): Have you spoken to any employers about these findings yet? Have you gone into the real world and stuff?

MEDNICK: No, no.

DELANEY (voice-over): But in the world of Harvard's psychology department, they figured out staying tuned in, it works. All about tuning out, taking a nap around midday everyday. They've done the numbers.

(on camera): Sleep, not just rest, but an hour or so of real sleep in the workplace, at your desk, or wherever you can manage it or get away with it, can make you as much as 90 percent as alert as you were at 9:00 in the morning even by 7:00 at night.

(voice-over): The study compared with a nap, without a nap, how accurately 50 people detected a rapidly flashed visual symbol in the morning, by afternoon, by evening.

MEDNICK: There seems to be a long-term benefit to it. So it's not just right after the nap you feel good, but for the rest of the day you're also feeling good and you're also performing better.

DELANEY: In the real world, at the high-tech firm Visage outside Boston, though, CEO Thomas Colatosti has his own take on all of this.

THOMAS COLATOSTI, CEO, VISAGE TECHNOLOGY: I mean, I thought about it. It makes sense, because if the employees are napping, they're not bothering the people who are doing the work, so the workers' productivity, in fact, would go up.

DELANEY (on camera): Do you nap?

MEDNICK: Almost every day. Now that I have this research to back me up, yeah.

DELANEY (voice-over): But what if the guy in the cubicle next to you snores?

Bill Delaney, CNN, Boston.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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