Coffee Naps Better For Alertness Than Coffee Or Naps Alone 133
An anonymous reader writes: Caffeine is a staple of most workplaces — it's rare to find an office without a coffee pot or a fridge full of soda. It's necessary (or at least feels like it's necessary) because many workers have a hard time staying awake while sitting at a desk for hours at a time, and the alternative — naps — aren't usually allowed. But new research shows it might be more efficient for employers to encourage brief "coffee naps," which are more effective at returning people to an alert state than either caffeine or naps alone. A "coffee nap" is when you drink a cup of coffee, and then take a sub-20-minute nap immediately afterward. This works because caffeine takes about 20 minutes to get into your bloodstream, and a 20-minute nap clears adenosine from your brain without putting you into deeper stages of sleep. In multiple studies, tired participants who took coffee naps made fewer mistakes in a driving simulator after they awoke than the people who drank coffee without a nap or slept without ingesting caffeine.
Whats this, you want a Coffee Nap? (Score:1, Funny)
Coffee naps are for closers! [imdb.com]
Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Every metric that says not doing work at certain times can be good for your work overall can and will be overlooked by the kind of people who want you working 60 hour weeks. They want to look good for their boss, and butts in seats are the best way to do that.
Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. (Score:5, Interesting)
And for those that want to argue that it's the employer's time, to use the employees how they see fit, one of the fastest ways to demoralize a technical worker is to make him do manual labor that doesn't even serve a purpose; most of us got into technical fields to avoid doing manual labor in the first place, let alone that which doesn't make a positive contribution.
Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if most of us got into tech to avoid manual labor. I personally got in it because I like the idea of solving problems, rather than taking care of them for a short while.
I'd appreciate more physical activity at work, 40 hours a week of physical idleness(on top of sleeping) is not what the human body evolved for.
Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. (Score:5, Funny)
"Go take these old PCs that are in the redeployment pool and cannibalize them."
"Go take these cannibalized PCs and load them into this modular shipping container."
"Go unload this modular shipping container of old cannibalized PCs and load them in this trailer."
"Go unload this trailer of old cannibalized PCs and load them onto these pallets."
"Go break-down these pallets of old cannibalized PCs and load them into this modular shipping container."
It was like Cool Hand Luke without the eggs.
Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest I wasn't sympathetic with your plight. Sorry. Busywork does actually suck. Just that a bit of physical labor as part of my work day wouldn't be unwelcome.
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Looks like you solved how to keep the manual labor busy....
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Fuck me. Tell me you're exaggerating.
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I wish I could mod this "Oh! WTF!"
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Go take these old PCs and give them a second life as a Linux server.
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Possibly the biggest insult was when we lost some permanent storage, and they decided to rent a couple of mobile-mini ex-shipping-containers. I suggested that as we unload the permanent storage we use the opportunity to palletize (and inventory) stuff that needs to be kept (putting that inventory control sheet wrapped in with the contents on the pallet that it describes
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I personally got in it because I like the idea of solving problems, rather than taking care of them for a short while.
Just don't mistake any of the trades for not being problem-solving professions. Laying out a plumbing stack, electrical plan, etc. and making it work seamlessly (err... perfectly), or welding together a skyscraper are very valid and worthy problem solving engagements. Same with shoeing a horse from rods of iron. You just get to move more in these jobs.
I'd love to hear from somebody who fe
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Not to mention that running the report will itself become part of a bizarre ritual. Not less than once a month, the report must be run, printed in triplicate, placed in a folder (yes, all three copies in the same folder) and filed away unread. It will remain there until the filing cabinet fills whereupon it will be moved to a larger filing facility, still unread. Meanwhile, the electronic copy will be moved from the file server to an archival tape in the library. Years later, the unread paper reports will
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Not to mention that finance is fiction, an accounting shell-game, a non-productive exercise that only serves the exercise of flimsy agreements,
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I knew a guy who'd once been in the U.S. Navy aboard an aircraft carrier who had learned the art of doing whatever he wanted to do and please the bass who was more interested in asses in seats than quality work. He did what was asked of him and quickly, but because he never appeared to be not busy he was able to do much more of what interested him than was also related to his role and was never questioned by the boss. This takes an attitude that most don't learn that what you do at work can be self-motivat
Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course an employer can do what they want which includes busywork, but that doesn't mean the employer isn't a complete failure when it comes to defining the scope of a job position. Most employers are too lazy to do this well.
Any employer who can't accept that you won't be busy every second of the day is not an employer worth working for in any country in the world.
Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Part of the problem was that immediate supervisory-types could only barely do their own jobs, and saw just about everyone underneath that was more capable as a threat, so they actively discouraged us to play and learn.
They even got mad when I took an ancient box and loaded Linux on it to play. It was a friggin' Microchannel box it was so old, and they still panicked because it wasn't 'standard'. Nevermind that the IT department should be the
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Actually, that should be an unwritten rule for anyone who dares to call himself "engineer" or "scientist", and if he has a manager who wants the spend the energy micromanaging, a cat and mouse game of "find me not doing exactly what you think I should', will exhaust that person. Most managers I've seen are too lazy to actually know exactly what their employees are doing, so I've known people who have been able to do pretty much whatever they wanted within reason provided they did what was asked, The trick
Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. (Score:5, Funny)
...And for those that want to argue that it's the employer's time, to use the employees how they see fit, one of the fastest ways to demoralize a technical worker is to make him do manual labor that doesn't even serve a purpose; most of us got into technical fields to avoid doing manual labor in the first place, let alone that which doesn't make a positive contribution.
One of the scariest things to see is a programmer walking towards the servers with a screwdriver...
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When I was hourly at a place where they weren't allowed to send us home early, they would find all manner of useless busywork for us to do if they caught us done without more work to do.
What were they making you do? Was it extra programming projects, crossword puzzles, or mopping the floor? Just curious
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Bill Hicks had a great story along these lines; paraphrased to:
Boss: Why aren't you working?
Bill: There isn't anything to do.
Boss: Well pick up a broom and pretend that you're working.
Bill: You're paid the big money, why don't you pretend that I'm working.
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most of us got into technical fields to avoid doing manual labor in the first place, let alone that which doesn't make a positive contribution.
I got into Tech because it paid heaps more than everything else. I'm quite happy to mow lawns or dig a hole if I get paid the same. In fact my last contract I was able to work from home 2 days a week. I was the highest paid gardener in the country :)
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I expect it's just what bureaucratic organizations end up doing.
Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. (Score:4, Interesting)
Welcome to the life of an active duty military member
Indeed. Nobody does busywork as well as the US military. When I was a private, I was once give the task of straightening out staples so they could be reused.
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IE, by failing the character test and still managing to become sergeants, they pass the trait on in a natural-selection sort of way.
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Enlisted men who object to senseless rudimentary tasks during training are unlikely to charge an entrenched machine gun in battle.
Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. (Score:5, Interesting)
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No, I'm pretty well compensated for my time, and I'm salaried. It's just stodgy and traditionalist comes with the sector I'm in.
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My upper management wants to see project deadlines hit. They don't care what or how we get it done.
Same here, they don't care if you do it during the day or at night as long as it gets done... Oh, and as long as you are here from 8:30 to 5:30 because it looks bad to the other departments if you are not here. You can go ahead and work nights at your discretion, but your butt does need to be in the chair from 8:30 until 5:30.
A few months ago, I got a call at 6:00 in the morning about an issue. I worked on it until 9, took a shower and went to work. On the way to work, and issue came up, and I asked if so
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Depends on the employer. Maybe if you have a bunch of $11/hour monkeys working for you all they care about are butts in seats. My upper management wants to see project deadlines hit. They don't care what or how we get it done.
Most US employers want asses in seats, because they're too stupid to have learned that people working 60+ hour weeks are impeding progress rather than facilitating it.
Re:Employers don't want employees who LOOK lazy. (Score:4, Informative)
There's also the question of whose dime this caffeine nap is on: the employee, or the employer.
Each has an opinion and it's probably not the same opinion.
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There's also the question of whose dime this caffeine nap is on: the employee, or the employer.
Each has an opinion and it's probably not the same opinion.
If an employer allows proper rest breaks, they do it on their own dime. If the employer doesn't allow proper rest breaks, it's still on their dime only in a way beancounters have more trouble counting.
In this case, there's also the question of where to nap -- not too many employers would like to replace office/factory space with a bed. I suspect only "live at the office" tech companies will do this, both as they already have so many perks and because they will benefit more from better employee concentration
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That's a knee slapper.
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Yeah, I hear Bangladesh calling!
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Naps of this sort aren't about "falling asleep" though.
Re:Unless... (Score:5, Funny)
You could try doing it during a meeting.
Bring a cup of coffee and a pair of those fake awake eyes specs and hope you don't snore.
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Caffeine is acts as a stimulant chemical in the brain and some other tissues of the body. It can also block an inhibitory neurotransmitter (brain chemical) called adenosine. Adenosine acts on our brain to calm things down and even bring on a sleepy feeling. When we have caffeine, the brain produces more adenosine to counter the caffeine. If you feel sleepy after drinking coffee then your body is producing even more adenosine than normal. The caffeine and adenosine compete for brain receptors and the adenosi
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It all comes down to tolerance. With a high caffeine tolerance, a small amount from a single cup of coffee has less stimulant effect than the relaxing effect of the warm beverage.
Anecdotal verification (Score:4, Funny)
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I've done this for years, and didn't even know it was a thing. Seems to work.
Glug Glug
...
ZZZZzzzzzz
Hey who stole my computer?!
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Tell us more about your strategy.
Was it drink coffee, set 20 minute alarm, nap, jump to work like in the story?
Or was it a small variation?
Re:Anecdotal verification (Score:5, Insightful)
Was it drink coffee, set 20 minute alarm, nap, jump to work like in the story?
I'm not the GP, but I do this on long drives if I start feeling a bit bleary. I'll pull into a rest area, drink a bit of something caffeinated (maybe a couple of good pulls on a bottle of Dr Pepper or Moxie), and put my seat all the way back. No alarm needed, as the caffeine slowly takes effect and wakes me up in about 15 to 20 minutes.
It leaves me feeling awake and alert again, and I'll repeat the process every couple of hours.
Note that I broke my caffeine addiction in college when it started giving me miserable headaches, and I rarely consume anything caffeinated today, so a little bit goes a long way for me. If you drink caffeine regularly, you may need more than I do to make this work.
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I've done this for years, and didn't even know it was a thing. Seems to work.
Works for me too, especially when bumping into dead ends doing creative work.
I'm a writer; I can put in a solid day's work on the proofreading and minor editing/revision aspects, but sometimes spend days or weeks trying to find a good point of view for a scene, or effective way to present character development. Best thing when realizing I've just spent half a day writing crap: have a cup of coffee and nap 15 minutes.
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I've actually done this with 5 hour energy drinks. (Score:3)
It works surprisingly well.
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www.5hourenergy.com/healthfacts.asp
AC is full of crap. There is no sugar; sucralose is used for a sweetener. One could argue that sucralose and preservatives are toxic, but everything else is mostly vitamins, amino acids and caffeine. Seems to be a better option than chugging a soda or Red Bull.
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I don't think he's talking about Red Bull or its ilk; he's talking about the small (1 or 2 ounce) capsules loaded with caffeine and zinc. Not much sugar in them compared to energy drinks, and they can be very useful at times if you can handle the sudden influx of zinc.
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Yeah, because what was good enough for the Roman slaves and medieval serfs is obviously the best life style for everybody.
Look to our roots in hunting/gathering, and you find there was no set pattern for sleep. When picking berries, you slept in the shade when it was too hot or at camp when it was too dark; otherwise you picked while watching the sunrise and picked while watching the sun set. When the smelt were running, you scooped up fish in the moonlight, cleaned fish as the sun rose, gathered wood and
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Re:Good way to make yourself ill (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't naturally sleep 8 hours a night [slumberwise.com]. We naturally sleep for two blocks of 3-4 hours per day, which the lifestyle requirements of the modern world have forced to occur in a more-or-less continuous 7-8 hour block.
Pre-industrially, those two blocks would have an hour or two of waking time between them; modern research (mostly military) has found that splitting them apart further allows people to go with as little as 4-5 hours of sleep per 24 hour period with only minimal impact on performance.
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Pre-industrially, those two blocks would have an hour or two of waking time between them
Indeed -- it was basically forgotten for about a century [bbc.com], but recently historians have been finding references EVERYWHERE to "first sleep" (or "early slumber" or "beauty sleep") and "second sleep" in many cultures around the world.
The first descriptions of "insomnia" come up only in the 19th century, just about the same time that the two sleep blocks really started to disappear.
And we should not forget the role of coffee in this transition. (From the link above:)
[A researcher] attributes the initial shift to improvements in street lighting, domestic lighting and a surge in coffee houses - which were sometimes open all night.
Coffee may not just ruin your sleep some
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--But what about second breakfast???
/ po-tay-to
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Actually evidence suggests 8 hours a night is NOT what we're supposed to do. In the middle ages people would go to bed shortly after dark and sleep heavily until somewhere around midnight. They would then be quietly awake for a couple hours and go back to sleep (the beauty sleep), then wake around dawn.
The problem for most people is they don't allow themselves enough sleep at all. Hopefully if they can at least be OK with naps, they'll be a bit better off anyway.
Ad coffee (Score:3)
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Nah, LP's don't hurt that much if you know what you're doing. An added bonus is that you can do them with the patient sitting up.
Just a little skin prick here and we're done......
Of course, then there is the post spinal headache, but heck can't have everything.
Shape up, science! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Time Management (Score:2)
If you've got time to nap, you've got time for more work.
either caffeine or naps alone (Score:1)
So, this compares one technique that includes both coffee and sleep to using either of them separately. Is it really surprising that it is more efficient doing both? They should have included a forth group, which got to nap for 20 min, then drink coffee, and then after the caffeine kicked in, made to do some task. Maybe the increased sleep quality, combined with the coffee made them the most efficient of them all.
Drop Caffeine Altogether (Score:5, Interesting)
About ten years ago, I cut out caffeine altogether. The first two weeks off of it was really tough. I slept a lot and when I was awake I didn't feel awake.
Now, I'm more alert than I was when I was caffeinated and when I hit the pillow at night, 9 times out of 10 I am out within five minutes. I wake up without an alarm clock and have no more than a minute or two of grogginess when I get up.
I was probably a harder core caffeine user than most, and with my personality, dialing it back wouldn't work -- it is either consume a lot or none at all.
Overall, it was the best health choice I've made for myself.
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I quit (albeit accidentally) caffeine over 20 years ago, and I've never thought about the effects like you describe before, until you brought it up.
Yes, going to sleep quickly is a piece of cake, and instantly awake is the norm for me.
I'd like think there are health benefits from giving up caffeine as well, but overall I'm just glad to be done with the caffeine-related headaches.
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Actually I had a bad experience with caffiene withdrawl years ago, high school actually. I had managed quite a habbit of hitting the vending machine for iced tea. Two in the morning before class, two at lunch, then of course there was either wrestling practice or the ride home. After doing this a while, I forgot my wallet at home in a rush one day.....ouch.
Ever since, I watched for the morning headaches, if I get them, I immediately detox off caffiene for two weeks, never had such a bad reaction since.
Thoug
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I accidentally did it by switching from Coffee to Tea due to stomach issues... (yes i know Tea has caffeine, keep reading)
After i switched to Tea i went and tried many different types till i found ones i liked, and sat well with my stomach after drinking it all day. An that Tea was Rooibos Tea also known as Red Tea. After more than a year of switching i found out Rooibos Tea had zero Caffeine.
I don't drink sodas and haven't for many years, and again i made the witch to find something that fit my stomach
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About ten years ago, I cut out caffeine altogether.
Yes, I did that too out of necessity about 5 years ago. Not that I was ever actually "addicted" like many people -- I would rarely have coffee more than a few times per week, though I used to brew a LOT of my own tea and iced tea.
But at some point my body seemed to become hypersensitive to it. Now, if I have a cup of coffee after 2pm, it will likely keep me awake until the middle of the night. So I just had to move to decaf tea and coffee.
Now, I'm more alert than I was when I was caffeinated
This is the thing about studies like this. Many of these studie
Old news (Score:2)
Who has time for a nap? (Score:1)
20 minute nap? (Score:3)
It takes me 20 minutes to fall asleep normally, even when I haven't had any caffeine. Not only that, but I would need to take my contact lenses out first.
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I came here to say the same thing. I find it hard to believe most people can just nap on a dime. In fact I can't sleep unless I am actually tired, I can't just "nap" at will.
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Yeah... what is this insta-nap thing? I can fall asleep easily at night but during the day there is no way. I don't care how tired I am it just won't happen unless I'm somewhere that is a home-like place and in a receptacle meant for sleeping.
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this will never work in IT (Score:5, Funny)
Ask about taking coffee naps, or even the more traditional after-lunch kind, and your employer will suspect you of being over forty.
Great! Just learn to nap on command (Score:2)
Sleepspace (Score:2)
Never happen (Score:2)
Stand-up workstations are better than caffeine (Score:2)
I would argue that employers are definitely interested in increased productivity from employees, but they will certainly settle for the appearance of productivity.
At the risk of going off-topic, a twice-a-day caffeine nap at work is not going to improve productivity nearly as much as a stand-up work station will. Not to mention that staying in a sedentary, sitting position 8+ hours a day is incredibly unhealthy and unnatural. Blast from the past from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2011/05/09... [mashable.com]
It takes me 30 minutes to drink a cup of coffeee.. (Score:2)
Good Luck With That (Score:1)
Another finding (Score:1)
Caffeine is not a solution, it is a problem (Score:2)
If wanting to be alert and have good sleep patterns, then you would do well to not use caffeine at all. It is not some miracle, it is like any other drug- it builds dependence and nothing is "free"... the energy you might gain is made up for by energy lost later.
I know this sentiment might not be a popular view (apparently) in the tech crowd, what with coffee, tea, caffeine pills, caffeinated sodas, caffeinated soap and other such nonsense.
Napping... great work if you can get it. (Score:2)
I am retired now, but when I was working in Asia I often took a twenty- to thirty-minute nap followed by a big jolt of coffee or tea or an energy drink. My favorite place for a kip was in the shade of the building in which I worked (It was on pilings so there was a gap under it.) The newspaper delivery guys for the publishing group that employed me napped on beach loungers in this cool and gloomy underbelly. There were almost always a few free loungers. And I would catch thirty minutes on one and then buy a
Coffee is a kludge (Score:1)
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For me I think back to when I was hiking in mexico and ate fresh coffee berries off of the tree. That memory takes over and drowns out the bitter flavor and voila. COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE COFFEE
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