"Charisma Nap" - aka "Power Nap"

I was talking to my brother on the phone today - and had a quick brag about a 15 minute power nap I just had. I am finding with my early morning meetings, busy days and catch-ups with people at night that I sometimes "zone-out"... this is not good.

My brother then proceeds to talk to me about some "research" about the power nap. He sent me a paper in PDF titled, "The recuperative value of brief and ultra-brief naps on alertness and cognitive performance" AMBER J . TI ETZEL and LEON C. LACK - School of Psychology, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Check out these sections:

"A brief nap (or "power nap") is one alertness management strategy that has recently received attention and has been shown to ameliorate the negative effects of sleep restriction. However, despite the considerable industrial and scientific interest in brief naps, the minimum duration of nap sleep required for restoring alertness following restricted nocturnal sleep is yet to be elucidated."

"Measures of subjective alertness, objective alertness, fatigue, vigour and cognitive performance were taken before the nap and at several intervals postnap. Consistent with our previous study (Tietzel and Lack 2001), the 10-min nap resulted in significantly improved alertness and cognitive performance relative to a no-nap control."

"The value of the nap (recuperative capacity) comes with the initiation of delta wave activity during the sleep episode.."

"In summary, the findings of this investigation further attest to the benefits of brief afternoon naps in the order of 10 min duration..."

Wow!! So my brother's BIG idea is that a 10 minute power nap will improve my performance as a leader. And then he believes that this will improve my "charisma" in a meeting as I will be sharper and fresher. That's where he gets the term "charisma nap" from. I will keep these vital trials going and keep you posted.

Does anyone else out there "power nap?"....... ZZZZZZZZZZ