How you're making Mondays worse
Not a Monday morning lover? You could be unintentionally making it worse. Research conducted at Rush University in Chicago has shown that ‘social jet lag’ can occur when we sleep late on the weekends, making Monday mornings worse than they already are.
The study found that snoozing until noon (as many of us do) can not only make you groggy for Monday morning, but can have lingering effects until Wednesday.
The effects of sleeping late on weekends include poor reaction time, less mental acuity, and poor memory. Sound like anyone else's Monday? They also found repeatedly shifting your body clock on weekends is linked to obesity, as people rely on sugar and caffeine to adjust their body.
"The weekend sleep in is just the process by which people shift their clocks later - it wouldn’t be a problem except for that rude awakening on Monday morning when all of a sudden we need to shift earlier," commented lead researcher Helen Burgess.
What about naps at work?
Looking to boost productivity on a Monday? Despite a lot of employers (and employees) resisting, naps at work have a lot of science behind them. Not only physically restorative, a quick 20 to 30 minute power nap can circumvent the damage done during a busy weekend, and help improve perceptual skills, motor skills, reaction time and alertness for the rest of the day.
Some notable companies that have napping rooms in the office include The Huffington Post, Ben and Jerry’s, and Google. Despite these official policies however, employees don’t often make use of them.
What’s the napping policy where you work? Would you feel comfortable with employees taking a quick midday snooze?
Category: Life @ work
