Sleeping On The Job: An Essential Part Of My Workplace
I have this wonderful woman who works for me part-time, three days a week, doing editing, etc. We take regular 17 to 20 minute nap breaks throughout the day. (There's no enforcement of this like at nursery school! The idea is just to give the brain a rest and not be on the computer.)

We also work over Skype, so it's not like we're both snoring away in the same place. But if I had a bigger workplace, I'd have nap spaces.

Justin McCurry, in Tokyo, writes for The Guardian that Japanese firms encourage their dozy workers to sleep on the job. Inemuri -- or "sleeping while present" -- is considered the preserve of employees exhausted by their commitment to hard work, rather than a sign of indolence":

In Japan, where workers get less sleep on work nights than those in other countries, more and more companies are encouraging employees to sleep on the job, convinced that it leads to better work performance.

...Okuta, a home renovation firm near Tokyo, allows its employees to take a 20-minute power nap at their desks or in the staff lounge. Introduced two years ago on the orders of the firm's chairman, Isamu Okuta, it has proved a huge hit.

"If I use a calculator when I'm sleepy, I have to double-check my work for fear of making mistakes, so it takes longer," Ikuko Yamada, who works in accounts, told the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper. "I think my work performance has improved since I started ­taking naps."

Hugo Inc, an internet consulting company based in Osaka, has a more flexible approach: employees can take a 30-­minute siesta any time between 1pm and 4pm.

...Japan's new approach is less about saving face than burying it in a plump pillow. The sanctioned siesta has spawned an industry in daytime sleep services.

At Gmo Internet, an IT firm in Tokyo, employees have sofas to curl up on, while workers in the Umeda business district of Osaka can go off-site to a nearby public napping facility with beds.

Tokyo's Ohirune Café Corne has eight beds for working women who want to sleep in partitioned comfort, soothed by the scent of essential oils. It charges 160 yen (93p) for every 10 minutes - and a pair of pyjamas for 100 yen - and clients stay for almost an hour on average, according to the Asahi Shimbun.

An excerpt from abstract from a study on the benefits of napping for cognitive functioning by Nicole Lovato:

Naps can reduce sleepiness and improve cognitive performance. The benefits of brief (5-15 min) naps are almost immediate after the nap and last a limited period (1-3h).

Longer naps (> 30 min) can produce impairment from sleep inertia for a short period after waking but then produce improved cognitive performance for a longer period (up to many hours).

Other factors that affect the benefits from the nap are the circadian timing of the nap with early afternoon being the most favourable time.

Longer periods of prior wakefulness favour longer naps over brief naps. Those who regularly nap seem to show greater benefits than those who rarely nap.

P.S. Essential for daytime napping are high-end asshole canceling headphones (I have an older pair of QC15s Gregg got me, but they're close to the QC25s); the best earplugs around (worn under those headphones), and a free app with brown noise on my phone (less harsh -- that is, less "sharp," than white noise).

I leave that brown noise on a very low volume, and that, combined with the Bose and the earplugs gives you sort of a protective sound bubble. Because the Bose pads get ruined if I sleep with wet hair, I used regular headphones with the brown noise, and it was really too "sharp" for me to sleep. I know some people use white noise, but I just can't sleep with it,