It's Now Stylish To Sleep On The Job

Napping on the job has long been considered a fireable offense, and in many corporate cultures, employees wear long hours with too little sleep as a badge of honor, proof of their dedication. However, employers are coming to realize employees suffering from burnout are poor employees, and as the employee well-being revolution continues, companies are adopting--or rejuvenating--a long-held tradition: the power nap.

But First, a Quick Science Lesson We All Need

According to the CDC, a third of adults are not sleeping the recommended seven hours a night. This deprivation contributes to a plethora of problems. Employees without enough rest under their belts are more reactive, less creative, less logical, and less empathetic, and that's before taking into account the increased anxiety, anger, and blood pressure problems sleep deprivation can cause.

Humans are built for the afternoon nap. It's not a glitch in our systems. Studies have proven the afternoon drag between 1 and 3 p.m. is biological, not a food coma or our body's shout for sugary snacks or caffeine.

The Power Nap is Back

When employers consider the staggering $411 billion in economic losses per year due to employee mistakes, lost working days for illness made worse by sleep deprivation, and missed opportunities thanks to poor creativity and logical thinking, the solution seems simple, right?

Enable employees to get more sleep.

First, the cool kids, like Google and Zappos, were doing it, providing employees with quiet spaces where they could catch some ZZZs. Ben & Jerry's have been providing nap rooms to their employees for over a decade now. But more companies are catching on, and doing so with style by making nap pods, sleeping nooks, and sleep-supporting furniture part of their design.

Dreaming of a Comfortable, Nap-Friendly Office

Nap pods such as the ones manufactured by MetroNaps fit right in at NASA, but what if they don't match the aesthetic for your company? You want all the benefits of well rested employees, including boosted alertness, mood, memory, and creativity, right? You know it's about working smarter, not longer. After all, no one wants their employees collapsing from exhaustion and hurting themselves, like what happened to media mogul Ariana Huffington, who broke her cheekbone on her way down.

You don't have to dedicate whole rooms to napping space for your workforce, nor do you have to put a space-age sleeping module in the middle of your soothing biophilic space. Maybe a comfortable chaise lounge is more your speed.

Or perhaps you prefer a multi-purpose piece with versatility as well as function with this modular seating perfect for napping, sitting, lounging, and yes, even working.

But it doesn't have to be that complicated. Sometimes, a beautiful sofa in a low-traffic area will do.

The Beauty of the Nap Pod

There's no denying, however, the versatility and sleekness of the modern nap pod, however. They minimize distractions, and have features designed to put the power nap back on the grid:

Ergonomic comfort to take pressure off achy joints, relieve muscle tension, and get the blood flowing.

Privacy visor to minimize distractions, so that 20-minute power nap remains only 20 minutes.

Gentle waking features, such as vibrations and soft music, that don't jar people out of their snooze.

Pre-programmed auditory rhythms designed to send the user off to dreamland in the blink of an eye.

Universities are bringing them in to libraries for students who need that quick dip into dreaming to rejuvenate an overtaxed mind. Hospitals have long provided space for physicians and nurses on days-long shifts to catch some sleep where they can between round-the-clock patient care. It's honestly about time Corporate America wake up--or not, as the case may be--and realize happy, productive employees are well-rested employees. By giving room, or pods in this instance, for employees to take naps, companies are recognizing burn out is no longer a point of pride.

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Little time to sleep when music starts at Base Camp festival

Robyn Edie/Stuff

Event promoter Matt Turnbull and helpers, from left, Dane Hollands, Alex Lowe and Troy Janson, set up stage equipment for the Base Camp Festival on the Camp Taringatura property in central Southland.

Music fans are likely to grab sleep when they can with entertainers performing from 2pm to 6.30am at the Base Camp festival, being held from Sunday to Tuesday.

The festival was being held in a clearing surrounded by native bush next to Camp Taringatura on the South Hillend-Dipton Rd. Event promoter Matt Turnbull recommended people attending to bring ear plugs.

"It's going to be difficult to sleep without them [at night]."  

"The neighbour on the top of the hill [a kilometre away] is okay about the music ... he's sweet as."  

Turnbull said 500 people had bought tickets but the number could grow to 600 or 700 by the time the festival starts, A diverse range of music appealing to the 25-35 age group would be played by a variety of musicians and DJs. Music students from the Southern Institute of Technology would be part of the entertainment.

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"We want to give people with talent the opportunity to perform," Turnbull, of Bluff, said.

It was the first time Base Camp had been held in Southland. Turnbull had wanted to hold a Southland music festival for two years and got serious about it after talking with the owners of Camp Taringatura in July. They own the six hectares (15 acres) the camp is on. 

"I did a private function in the [camp] hall in July, met the owners and had a few chats."

A short time later, Turnbull gained approval to arrange the outdoor festival on the property.

Turnbull, who organised about 150 music events in Otago a year, was always on the lookout for outdoor venues for music events.

"We'll be driving along, see a clearing in the bush and jump out for a look. We'll look around and imagine different gigs that could go on it."

The stage being used was imported by Turnbull. Fire wardens, trained medical and security people would be at the festival, along with 40 volunteer workers.

When the music was not playing, various workshops would be run for people interested in yoga, mental health issues, martial arts and other subjects.

"It'll be workshops during the day and music at night," Turnbull said.

"We're excited about the event ... we're ready for it."

 

Stuff

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Does listening to music really help you to fall asleep?

© Getty A woman listens to music in bed It's evening and my three-year-old son is overtired, the hour well past his bedtime.

After some negotiation and much protest, we go to his room. I read a Dr Seuss book, watch him carefully arrange his fluffy toy friends in bed, give him a drink of water, tuck him in, and turn off the light.

"Let's listen to some music," I say, switching on the digital radio and taking a seat in the armchair beside him.

It's code, of course. "Listen to some music" means "go to sleep".

But it's not just my son who nods off — I do too.

Initially, I put it down to sheer exhaustion; the cumulative effects of parenting a spirited toddler.

But then I wonder: is there more to it? Does the music itself play a role?

The kids at my son's day care have naptime in the afternoons, and this includes the playing of music.

The educators say it helps them relax.

We've used lullabies to soothe young children for thousands of years.

One of the earliest recorded lullabies is etched into a 2000-year-old Babylonian tablet.

The children's radio station in my son's room plays lullabies in the early evening. This is followed by soft classical music until midnight, and then ambient sounds and field recordings until dawn. It's a tailored playlist designed to lull children to sleep, keep them asleep, and help provide a deep slumber.

But the jury is out as to whether or not music will help.

Music and medicine

When we fall asleep our brain cycles through different phases from wakefulness to non-REM sleep and then REM sleep.

These phases produce distinct changes in our brainwaves, and physiological signs such as eye movements, heart rate, blood pressure and levels of consciousness.

YouTube is awash with sounds purported to inspire us to slip into sleep, including eight-hour recordings of theta and delta brainwaves.

A recent Danish study found music may help the recovery of patients in an intensive care areas — where they are most in need of the restorative properties of sleep.

Rosalind Elliott, a clinical nurse specialist in Sydney's Royal North Shore Hospital intensive care unit, encourages her patients' families to provide their loved ones with their preferred music in order to promote relaxation and sleep.

"Medications such as benzodiazepines and atypical antipsychotics are often used to promote sleep in the field of general sleep medicine, but these have been shown to be harmful to the critically ill in both the short and long term," she says.

"Non-pharmacological interventions such as music offer a safe alternative and are useful adjuncts to the therapeutic efforts of the critical care nurse to provide comfort and rest."

But Moira Junge, a psychologist and board member of the Sleep Health Foundation, advises caution.

"The new Danish study didn't objectively measure sleep; there was a self-report questionnaire which is a subjective estimate."

Dr Junge also worries the carers, not the patients themselves, may have made the estimates.

"This is because most critically ill people can't really estimate their sleep quality or quantity."

Do you sleep with Ed Sheeran or Mustang Sally?

About 40 per cent of people have inadequate or disrupted sleep due to a medical condition or sleep disorder.

Many studies have shown that music can help adults with chronic sleep disorders such as primary insomnia.

Michael Gradisar, a clinical psychologist from Flinders University, has worked with adults and teenagers experiencing insomnia.

Professor Gradisar says he recommends his clients use passive technological activities such as listening to music before bed, and even in bed.

"Over the years, I've heard many adults and teenagers say that when they try to fall asleep at night, they worry about things that happen during the day and things they still need to do," says.

"This concurs with research showing that evening is one of the peak times when people ruminate."

Danny Eckert of Neuroscience Research Australia also believes music before sleep can have positive benefits for those having trouble drifting off.

"Listening to music as part of the pre-sleep routine, particularly music with an underlying rhythm of about 60 beats per minute (bpm), similar to human heart rate, can improve sleep quality and quantity in some people with sleep problems such as insomnia," Professor Eckert says.

Examples of 60 bpm songs include Gotye's Hearts a Mess, The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1, and The Commitments' Mustang Sally.

Meanwhile, Ed Sheeran, Coldplay and Brian Eno were the most popular contemporary artists, and Bach, Mozart and Chopin the most popular classical composers to fall asleep to, according to a recent study from the UK.

Music is soothing but there's no easy fix

Anecdotally, my 87-year-old mum plays a Greek radio station on low volume through the night. She says it helps her sleep since Dad died.

With music in the air, she's suddenly not so alone anymore. And Mum is also a world-class worrier.

"Listening to music could be helpful to the person who finds themselves worrying when lying in bed in dark silence," Professor Gradisar says.

"Not only would music help as a distraction, but it could also create a more positive association with going to bed."

Unlike video games or certain smartphone apps, listening to music doesn't require the user to interact with the device, and so qualifies as a passive activity.

"This can allow sleep to come more easily," Professor Gradisar says.

But the jury is still out on the benefits of music and sleep, according to Dr Junge.

"It's clearly very soothing for most people to have music in their lives, but we recommend no music at all during sleep, including for children," she says.

"There is currently no recommendation via the Sleep Health Foundation to utilise music during sleep.

"Our current recommendation focuses on reducing vigilance, worry, and hyper-arousal, and there are quite large differences in people as to how to best reduce this 'wired' state."

She cautions people who are looking for a cure or treatment plan for better sleep that it's unlikely to be just one thing that will help them sleep better.

"It's a bit like getting fit and losing weight: it takes time, effort, and is multi-factorial," she says.

Where's my John Coltrane?

Ultimately, the choice is up to the individual.

For my family at least, music seems to have been an easy, cheap, and effective way to improve our sleep.

And when you're the parent of young children, that's everything.

As for my son, I recently switched his regular radio station from the children's channel to jazz — less Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and more dirty saxophones.

When my wife heard an especially energised bebop rendition recently, she changed the channel back.

But my son sat bolt upright in bed, pointed an insistent finger at the radio, and demanded to have his John Coltrane restored.

And I was rather proud of that.

Pictures: The dark roots of our favourite nursery rhymes

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Matthew McConaughey Wants to Rock You to Sleep — No, Really

"Well hello there. I'm Matthew McConaughey and tonight I'll be reading a special sleep story called Wonder," begins the new bedtime story narrated by the mega star for the meditation app called Calm. This is an app that aims to teach you how to meditate and get a more restful sleep through breathing exercises, music and sleep stories.

I accidentally bought the $60 annual subscription to this app when I let the seven-day free trial run over and was automatically charged. At first, I was pretty irritated, as I was only using the app about once a week and wasn't planning on committing to another year of forcing myself to relax.

So after only using it occasionally, when I randomly remembered or began to have some sort of anxiety attack over the future or how I just spent my entire paycheck on flat whites from Magnolias, I was pleasantly surprised when I found out about the new Matthew McConaughey sleep story.

I've never felt closer to McConaughey, even while I stood 10 or so feet away from him on the field sideline at a University of Texas football game back in October, intently staring at him while he pounded his chest and put up his horns instead of watching the game. Listening to him speak in a dreamy tone about "pondering the depth of the present moment" and "allowing ourselves to be moved and inspired," made that accidental purchase completely worth it.

Author of Wonder, Chris Advansun, wrote the most soothing 35-minute story about a grandfather explaining the magic of the universe and of life itself to his young granddaughter for listeners to drift off to sleep to. McConaughey's delivery is as satisfying as whenever he says "Alright, alright, alright."

I could see this as a great Christmas gift for the continually stressed out father, your mom who not-so secretly wishes she was married to Matthew McConaughey, or that extended relative who you don't really know what else to get.

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Music To Sleep

Music to sleep is the best sleep app with relaxing music and sleep sounds, which will help you to relax and sleep better.

In this calm app, you will find different sleeping songs we have selected particularly to relax and sleep better. Additionally we have developed a tool, which will allow you to create your own relax melodies or relaxing sounds by combining the sounds you like and customized to your liking. You can combine dozens of different relaxing sounds for sleeping from rain sounds for sleeping, forest, birds, thunderstorms, white noise, etc, all this combined as you like and 100 % customized.

What does Music to sleep offer?We wanted to develop one of the best meditation apps with relaxing sleep music. Therefore, we have created a tool, which contains various functionalities and features you can use:1.- Deep sleep music: The first tool you will find in this app is a music player with soothing music, with 2 types of songs: Chill out and relaxing music, so that y ou can choose the music you prefer depending on the situation. We also recommend to use these songs as baby sleep music, since they are relaxing they might help children to fall asleep.2.- Calming music generator: With this tool you can create your own customized melody by using all the sound we have prepared for you as a base. You can add sound you like and create your own meditation music mix. You could say that it is a white noise app, with which you can add all kinds of sounds: rain, thunderstorm, birds, nature sounds, city sound and white noises.3.- And last but not least, we have prepared some articles, which will be very useful for you, as a complement to these tools. In these articles we will talk about important topics such as the diet to sleep well, the stages or cycles of sleep, postures to sleep well, how many hours we should sleep, etc.

Main characteristics of the app Music to sleep:In summary, this is what this app with asmr sleep music offers you:- Sleep meditat ion music to listen to with lots of songs. You can use these songs as baby sleep sounds or sleep music for kids.- A great variety of relaxing sounds you can combine and customize as you like. You should also know that these sounds can be good as a guided sleep meditation or relaxing music to study.- Learn more about sleep and how to sleep better in our section with tips and articles.

We hope that this app or tool helps you to sleep well and relax. We are open to suggestions if you have any doubts or idea for the app.

Note: The entire content of this app has been designed and created by Reticode, consequently any use outside of this app without our consent is prohibited.

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