Relax.  Don’t double down and amp up the effort.

Tony Schwartz, author of Be Excellent At Anything and author of a recent article in the Sunday New York Times warns us that we may not want to believe it but research shows naps and vacations lead to more and better output.  

It’s called strategic renewal and you’re going to be hearing more about it because, face it, we’re all too stressed!

Short afternoon naps.  Daytime workouts.  More sleep.  More time away from the office.  More vacations (Americans left an average of 9.2 vacation days unused in 2012).

Who does Schwartz think we work for – Google?

But jobs performance, more productivity and improved health are the solid evidence that backs up his claim.

More, bigger and faster is out. 

And believe it or not 50% of us plan to work on vacation, a third of us eat lunch at our desk while we continue to work and employers push this unsustainable work ethic that actually costs American companies some $63 billion a year according to a recent Harvard study.

• When a Stanford researcher got male basketball players to sleep 10 hours a night, free-throw and three point performance increased by 9%.
• When night shift air traffic controllers were asked to take a 40-minute nap mid-shift, their performance was better on tests that measured vigilance and reaction time.
• 60-90 minute naps actually improved memory.

Our bodies speak.  They tell us too much Starbucks.  Too much stress.  Too much digital.  And yet we don’t listen.

Schwartz says it best:

“When we’re renewing, we’re truly renewing, so when we’re working, we can really work”.

I’ve got to work on this one, how about you?

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