The Power of the Nap | BTalk Australia

(11min 06) Do you find there’s just not enough hours in the day? Is it making you tired? It might be time to look at a short nap during your working day.

On today’s BTalk Australia Phil Dobbie asks Brendan Torazzi, CEO of AlertForce, about what fatigue is costing business and the benefits of the power-nap and other fatigue-busting techniques. There are even sleep-pods where you can really escape from reality.

Do you powernap? Have you got any other fatigue-busting tips? Add your comments in the Talkback section at the end of this post.

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• Transcript

Phil Dobbie: Hello again, I’m Phil Dobbie. Well, are you feeling tired, listless, fatigued? Well, I hope it’s not BTalk Australia that’s doing that to you.

Fatigue in the workplace it can make it difficult for you to get through the day and in some cases, of course, it can be lethal, so how do you overcome it? Perhaps a powernap is the way to go. Well, Brendan Torazzi is the CEO of AlertForce. Now, Brendan we think of exhausted workers and we tend to think of people like long distance load drivers, people in the aviation industry as well, but in instances like that there is legislation isn’t there as to how many hours that you’re allowed to work?

Brendan Torazzi: That’s right. There was just some legislation introduced last year in September that was linked to occupational health and safety laws in all states of Australia except the WA that limits long distance heavy vehicle truck drivers. Now, this legislation because it’s being linked to OH&S is now affecting a whole range of other shift working industries like rail and ports. We’re expecting in the next few years that the regulatory requirements are really going to tighten up around fatigue and fatigue management.

Dobbie: So in those industries do you think truck drivers were pushing themselves too far?

Torazzi: The problem was that there are some very, very good companies that already have risk management systems in place, but it’s like most things it’s the very few that spoil it for everybody else. On average I think there is about two heavy vehicle fatalities per week and that doesn’t include the families or children or innocent bystanders that were killed with accidents so the government decided to step in and tighten up the amount of hours that heavy vehicle drivers can drive for.

Dobbie: These are extreme examples, of course, but I mean being fatigued covers every industry doesn’t it? It’s not always related to the hours worked. What are the common causes of fatigue?

Torazzi: Basically, in a nut shell, it comes down to not getting enough sleep. So in our society today you’ll find that people are tending to push themselves longer and longer. Our lives are becoming busier so, for example, we may want to work, we also have family and social commitments, perhaps we want to keep fit all those different things that are competing for our time and, unfortunately, normally what happens is that people decide that the easiest thing to cut is sleep when, in fact, that’s probably the most important thing you should really aim to get about seven to eight hours of quality sleep per night.

Dobbie: Though it’s not ideal is it if your work is forcing you to work those extra hours. You have to cut the other choice then if you’re not cutting back on sleep or cutting back on family time or cutting back on exercise, which is also counterproductive.

Torazzi: Well that’s right. I mean some of the more progressive companies particularly the shift working companies, companies in mining and health, a number of other industries are now power napping is, perhaps, one of the strategies that I can use along with a whole range of education services around the importance of getting enough sleep. So, certainly, everybody out there should be aiming for seven to eight hours of sleep per night. If you’re not getting that, perhaps, you can substitute by using a 20-minute work sanctioned powernap during the day to increase your alertness and awareness.

Dobbie: I like the way you say work sanctioned because I think that’s the fear isn’t it. People will be going, a powernap sounds great but I don’t want to be caught sleeping at my desk people will think I’ve lost the plot.

Torazzi: That’s right, well, I mean, of course, you’re talking of white collar industries, when you look at more sort of industrial places like mining companies and indeed the transport industry, the National Transport Commission have been promoting napping for truck drivers for many years and they’re actually encouraged to every time they take a break to radio in back to their base and to take a 15- to 20-minute nap to recharge their batteries.

Dobbie: So do you think that there is scope for it in white collar industries and are any professional businesses or professional service type businesses have they taken it on board?

Torazzi: Yes, most certainly, all around the world we’ve got some very large, I guess, conglomerates, people like Procter & Gamble and Google and all sorts of other household names that have embraced napping in the workplace. But to be really honest with you we find that the most use and interest comes from those, I guess 20 percent of companies that are running 24 hours a day or have some kind of irregular working hours.

Dobbie: And what about the optimum amount of work? I guess in a lot of industries you mentioned people are pushing themselves further. Sometimes falsely, working late and we all know that at some point you become counterproductive. Do we know at what stage that kicks in?

Torazzi: OK the research shows that after you’ve been working about 10 hours, the relative risks starts to really increase. And the other important point is if you’re working night shifts you can’t work more than about four consecutive night shifts before the risks will start to really elevate if you’re working more than that number of shifts. So all those things, I mean we always in our training programs are always encouraging companies to make sure that their staff take regular breaks particularly if they’re doing repetitive tasks or monotonous tasks and they should also work in teams so with a manager or supervisor who’s able to identify some of the potential, I guess, fall out if people are fatigued.

Dobbie: Right and you mentioned it does vary by sector but businesses are taking this seriously because there’s a way of putting dollar figures isn’t there on to how much fatigue’s costing the business.

Torazzi: Absolutely, the most recent figures out of Australia came from Access Economics in 2004 and they put the cost of fatigue in the Australian workplace at $10.3 billion. If we look at the US, we’re looking at about $136 billion US per year that fatigue is costing workplaces, so it’s no insignificant amount.

Dobbie: And a huge amount of work still to be done in that case, so how do we change the situation?

Torazzi: I would say education. Without education people don’t understand why they need sleep and that’s really the first step for most companies is to start, apart from putting together some policies and procedures around managing fatigue, start training their employees around the issue of sleep and how to get enough sleep.

Dobbie: Now, for companies that want to go to the nth degree I notice that you guys or an affiliate company have a thing called a sleep pod, which looks like something that’s just landed from outer space. Can you describe what it is and how it works?

Torazzi: Yes sure, we actually started our business off-selling sleep pods about four years ago and we found that we were successful at it but we found it quite a hard sell. But over the years in Australia we’ve introduced it into the health system, mining companies, we have health funds that have taken them on, a range of various different companies and businesses that have embraced the idea of or sanctioned the idea of having a powernap in the workplace.

Dobbie: And so the sleep pod it’s just something you get into, basically, and spend 20 minutes napping.

Torazzi: Exactly, so it’s custom designed for power napping. You can jump in, there’s some music, there’s a timer, there’s also a privacy shield so you’re able to feel like you’re somewhere else apart from work. And the most important thing is that the nap is controlled. So all the research points to 20 minutes as being the outside length of what a short nap should be so you wake up feeling refreshed and energised and ready to get back to work.

Dobbie: Now is that always the case? If I have a nap during the day I often feel worse when I wake up.

Torazzi: That’s true, what you’re experiencing there is called inertia. It’s a common feeling, for example, if you’ve fallen asleep on a Sunday afternoon in front of the telly and woke up feeling like you’ve got some kind of terrible hangover, that’s called sleep inertia. And what that is is that you’ve gone past the first two stages of light sleep and descended into a deeper sleep and woken up during that deeper sleep.

Dobbie: Right, and so the secret of the powernap is not to get into that deeper sleep is that what you’re saying?

Torazzi: Exactly, that’s why the research points to 15, 20 minutes as the maximum for a short nap. If you wanted to have a longer nap you’d time it for 90 minutes which is one full sleep cycle.

Dobbie: Right, I must admit watching Sunday afternoon TV it’s very difficult to stop yourself getting into that deeper sleep. Do you embrace all of this? Have you had your powernap today?

Torazzi: I certainly have, I like to do it everyday and I find that it cuts the day in half and definitely makes me more efficient for the rest of the afternoon.

Dobbie: And, of course, in a lot of cultures like southern European cultures having a nap during the day and a longer working day is quite common.

Torazzi: That’s correct and also South America they really embrace that idea as well. And interestingly enough in China in all the boarding schools or the schools it’s a compulsory between 12 and 1 to take a nap. So they’ve got a whole culture of workers over in China that understand the brilliance of taking a nap during the day.

Dobbie: Sounds like a marvellous idea. Listen, I like the idea of the sleep pod I think you could have BTalk piped in through the headphones and it might defeat the purpose in some way. Although I don’t know perhaps we’re helping people get to sleep, probably the optimum length as well. Thanks very much for your time. Something to think about and let’s hope we can reduce the amount of money which is spent with the damaging effects of fatigue. Thanks for your time today.

Torazzi: Great to speak to you Phil.

Dobbie: That’s Brendan Torazzi.