A Little More Shut-Eye Would Work Better for Most, Sleep Expert Says

Stuck with a boss or co-worker who is not only unimaginative and forgetful but, to top it off, cranky and humorless too?

Don’t despair. The situation might be at least partly correctable. The main problem afflicting your boss or colleague--or even you--could be chronic sleep deprivation.

So say sleep experts such as James B. Maas, a Cornell University psychology professor, business consultant and author of the new book “Power Sleep.”

Maas contends that most Americans fail night after night to get enough sleep and that the result is weaker, less inspired performance on the job day after day. Most working people, he says, need at least eight hours of sleep to function well, but they tend to fall short by an hour or more.

The signs of insufficient sleep are easy to spot. If you get drowsy after eating a hearty lunch, while sitting in a warm room or listening to a boring seminar, you probably aren’t getting enough shut-eye. Maas acknowledges that all of those things can easily make you uncomfortable or irritable, but they shouldn’t make you drowsy unless you are sleep-deprived.

What commonly happens, sleep experts say, is that people overcome their lack of sleep with caffeine or the stimulation provided by their jobs. Trouble is, once that stimulation subsides, creativity-dulling drowsiness takes over.

The cost of the drowsiness is substantial. Along with the loss of personal productivity and industrial accidents, at least 1,500 people are estimated to die in traffic accidents every year because of drivers who fall asleep at the wheel.

But managing to get enough sleep isn’t easy. Even though Maas sets eight hours a night as his goal, the 59-year-old professor and father of two teenage boys concedes he sometimes falls short of his target. On the other hand, he says, when he gets his eight hours, “I feel like a tiger. . . . I’m funny, I’m creative with my words and I have new insights.”

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To help improve the quality of the sleep you do manage to get, Maas suggests such tactics as going to sleep the same time every night of the week, including weekends, and waking up without an alarm clock. On days when you can’t manage to get enough sleep, try to make up your sleep deficit as soon as possible. Stay in shape but don’t exercise vigorously within three hours of going to bed. Along with avoiding such caffeine-laced beverages such as coffee, tea and colas for six hours before going to bed, stay away from chocolate and other high-sugar foods near bedtime, because they can also disrupt your sleep.

Napping is drawing increased attention as another way for working people to rejuvenate themselves during the day. Various employers have warmed up to the idea, particularly in industries with 24-hour schedules such as railroads and manufacturing. Some foreign airlines, including the Australian carrier Qantas, even allow pilots to nap in mid-flight when safety considerations permit.

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Although Maas supports midday napping, particularly for people who are missing out on a good night’s sleep, he advises some caution.

For one thing, he says a good night’s sleep normally is more valuable than a daytime nap. Also, he suggests that naps be limited to 15 to 30 minutes, to avoid interfering with your ability to fall asleep at night.

He and other sleep experts acknowledge that many Americans still ridicule or resist the idea of napping during the workday.

For example, Microtek Lab Inc., a computer scanner company in Redondo Beach, provides an area in its library with a couch and soft lighting for workers who need to catch a few winks. But company President S.C. Lee says the room is rarely used.

“People use it if they’re feeling ill or if they had a really bad night,” he says. But for the most part, he adds, taking naps seems “kind of odd in this culture.”

Lee, who has met Maas and was impressed by his theories, says his own schedule is too busy to consistently allow for eight hours of sleep a night. “I can only do so much,” says the 49-year-old executive.

Sleep deprivation is a particularly big problem for people who work middle-of-the night shifts. They normally find it hard to sleep during the day, says Steve Mardon, editor of Cambridge, Mass.-based ShiftWork Alert, a monthly newsletter that looks into workplace fatigue and related safety issues.

Noting that a person’s degree of alertness often depends on when he or she last got some sleep, Mardon suggests that shift workers try to squeeze in a nap within a few hours of heading to work.

And for shift workers who find themselves exhausted after they finish the night on the job, Mardon offers another suggestion: Grab a nap before driving home.

“The drive home is the most dangerous portion of a shift worker’s job,” he says. He acknowledges that a nap before leaving might make it somewhat more difficult to fall asleep later on. Even so, Mardon says, “I’d rather have someone get home safely and have a little problem falling asleep than nod off at the wheel and drive into a tree.”

Times staff writer Stuart Silverstein can be reached by phone at (213) 237-7887 or by e-mail at stuart.silverstein@latimes.com