If napping helped win the war, why don't we do it now?

At around midday, every day during the second World war, Winston Churchill would retire to a private room (within the war rooms), put on his PJs, and take a nap for an hour or two. Bombs might have been falling, but he trusted his leaders to do their duties whilst he rested. When the allies were doing their final push into Germany, was Hitler doing the same? Nope, he was staying awake for days, fuelled by amphetamines, cocaine and other drugs. We all know how it ended.

Churchill even convinced John F Kennedy about napping, and he learned to do the same, popped on his PJ’s in the afternoon and retired to his bedroom in his residence for an hour or so.

Deliberate rest for effectiveness

This wasn’t just falling asleep at their desk for what we refer to as a 10 minute power nap. This napping was “deliberate” and “timed”. For Churchill it was not because he was lazy or a little bit tired, far from it. It meant that he could effectively do 2 x 8 hour work days in a single day.

Google caught napping?

For the majority in the modern age, napping just isn’t practical and is still fiercely frowned upon by what I see our ingrained Victorian work ethic values. Some of the big tech companies are now trying to make napping a potential for people. I heard that Google built a napping pod at its HQ, that people could book in to. It was used something like once a month by a single person.

Do you use napping to your advantage? Does your company see it as a useful rest option in this 24/7 world? Let me know in the comments