Q: I try to get enough sleep every night but still find myself feeling tired. On days I work from home I sneak in a nap. Is there something wrong with me?
A: Inemuri is the Japanese art of sleeping on the job. Inemuri is culturally acceptable and a sign of an efficient and hard worker. Translated, Inemuri means something like, I am present while sleeping. That’s how I feel during most Zoom calls lately.
Inemuri is good for a worker’s social image as spending long hours at the office is a sign of commitment and excellence. Just imagine how impressed they’d be when exposed to social media images of SA uniformed officials snoring behind the desk or outside a KFC? Honour and excellence.
Being the first to arrive at the office and the last to leave can be taxing on the body, while long hours and elevated stress levels can have a devastating effect on the body. Inemuri protects hard workers against Karoshi, which means “overwork death”. While karoshi does sound a little dramatic, we all know that an unhealthy work-home balance and prolonged periods of stress can lead to burnout and negatively affect mental health.
Sleeping during the day may well be seen as laziness but some people need to do it, especially those who work odd hours or shifts, or those who have disrupted sleep.
We know good sleep is crucial for a healthy body — it’s like recharging a body’s batteries. Eskom has helped us appreciate the importance of this concept. Those of us who have backup batteries and uninterrupted power supply systems understand that batteries need to be fully charged for the system to work properly when called upon to do so.
Systems that aren’t automatically charged — in the rare instances when Eskom does oblige and return power on schedule — need to be charged manually. If we don’t do this properly we compromise the performance and the life of the battery itself. If we don’t sleep enough, or properly, we compromise our own performance and our lifespan.
Experts lack definitive answers about the health benefits of napping. An interesting recurring theme in studies about napping is heart health. Some believe a 30-minute nap a few times a week is good for your heart health, while others think the need to nap regularly may be a sign of an underlying problem that needs attention.
Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder found that everyone, including those with a genetic predisposition for heart disease, can lower their risk of heart disease by getting enough sleep. They can also increase the risk of heart problems by getting too much sleep.
It was found in a study of almost 3,500 people by the University Hospital of Lausanne in Switzerland, spanning several years, that those who did nap a few times a week had a significantly lower incidence of heart-related medical events. However, what they found was association and not causation.
According to a report in Healthline, in the land of Inemuri, researchers at the University of Tokyo found 11 studies showing that napping lowers the risk of heart problems to a certain point but that too much of a good thing increases the risk.
It sounds like everything else in life. Too little of a good thing is bad. Too much of a good thing is bad. Health is about striking the right balance.
Napping has other benefits, including easing stress, boosting creativity and restoring performance and alertness. This is no doubt the origin of “power nap”.
One thing everyone agrees on is that the perfect nap is between 20 and 30 minutes. Anything over this and you will be cycling through various stages of sleep. If you are suddenly awoken, it can leave you bewildered and groggy.
Healthy night-time sleeping habits should all but alleviate the need for shut-eye during the day. However, a recurring theme in the Water Cooler is that you should listen to, and honour, your body. If you need a short sleep, and you can fit one in, then go for it. Pushing through fatigue results in a cascade of negative health effects, so don’t ignore the reasons for being tired all the time.
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