A Thermal Environment That Promotes Efficient Napping

EasyChair Preprint 7666

Abstract

People need to maintain good health to live productive and creative lives, and sleep greatly contributes to maintaining good health. In recent years, some companies have begun allowing time for sleep during work hours as “power naps” to eliminate drowsiness and improve efficiency.

In this article, we report on the optimal thermal environment for efficient naps during the daytime when the body is active and the effect that naps have on improving productivity. This study uses questionnaires on drowsiness before and after the test along with the Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) and N-back task to evaluate productivity improvements in test subjects when room temperature is changed for each scene of “reclining for nap,” “sleeping,” and “waking from nap.”

Test results show that differences in room temperature can promote the onset of sleep, maintain sleep, and stimulate wakefulness. By optimally controlling these factors, it is possible to take a short high-quality nap to improve productivity.

   As sleep is said to be related to the function of the autonomic nervous system, it is believed that the thermal environment exerts influence on the autonomic nervous system and affects the quality of sleep, even when sleep duration is short.

Keyphrases: nap effect, napping, temperature control, thermal environment

@booklet{EasyChair:7666,
  author    = {Miki Nakai and Takahiro Ohga and Tomoyoshi Ashikaga and Keiki Takadama},
  title     = {A Thermal Environment That Promotes Efficient Napping},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 7666},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2022}}