For the last 20 years I have taken almost daily refreshing power naps. Now the guardians of pseudo disclipine want to banish this smart daily routine from the work place. I fear that we may be returnig to the dark ages of knowledge about human productivity.  SUE SHELLENBARGER filed in today’s Wall Street Journal this very troubling report that should be a call to arms for all power nappers around the globe.

The Power Nap’s 15 Minutes Is Over
An Unlikely Fad Gets
A Rude Awakening

After a brief “power napping” craze in the late 1990s, workplace napping has retreated to the corporate closet.  When David Oboyski of Kansas City, Mo., suggested starting a naproom at his previous job at a public-relations agency, citing research on how naps aid the bottom line, his boss and co-workers just laughed.  “It became a running punch line,” he says. Luckily, “being the ‘nap guy’ didn’t hurt my career, but I learned my lesson and never brought it up again,” says Mr. Oboyski, who is now a self-employed marketing consultant.

Employers who allow shift workers, including white-collar operations such as call centers, to take naps on their breaks dropped to 21% this year from 44% in 2002 and 48% in 2001, says a survey of 532 companies set for release next month by Circadian Technologies, Lexington, Mass. The study also found that more employers—52% compared with 38% in 2002—are punishing workers who catch a few Z’s by reprimanding or suspending them, sometimes even when they’re on a break.  Salaried workers are also seeing their employers back off policies that encourage napping, says Kevin Sheridan of HR Solutions, a Chicago management-consulting firm. Snoozing in the office just “doesn’t look good” to customers or co-workers, he says. With layoffs rife, “the last thing you want is to be viewed as the slacker in the naproom.”  There’s growing agreement among scientists and lawmakers that a nap at work can be a good thing. A 2002 study at Harvard University showed a midday nap can sharply improve performance on mental tasks.  State lawmakers are also cracking down on sleepy drivers, suggesting employers might be held liable for demanding heavy overtime without taking steps to combat worker fatigue. New Jersey last summer passed Maggie’s Law, making drowsy driving a crime. New York lawmakers are considering a similar measure.  Nevertheless, napping at work is clearly out of style. A Wayne-Dalton Plastics plant in Conneaut, Ohio, used to permit napping several years ago but doesn’t allow it now. Instead, the company regulates shift schedules to combat fatigue, passes out training materials and provides coffee to workers.  Napping has declined at PCi Services, a Boston software company where it once was common. Two naprooms have been combined into one, and the room is used as often for personal calls as for sleeping, says Kenneth Carangelo, chief administrative officer. Employees are managing their time to stay awake, he says; also, many are now equipped with technology to work at home or in their cars. Presumably, that gives them flexibility to grab a nap elsewhere if needed.  If you’re among workers who are permitted to nap, your office, your parked car or an empty conference room can be good places. Keep your nap under 45 minutes. Anything longer brings you into such a deep sleep that you’ll be groggy when you awaken, Kirsty Kerin, a consultant with Circadian.  But if you’re among the majority of workplace nappers who must sleep in secret, there are some ingenious ways to escape retribution.  One tactic is to prepare a bulletproof excuse: A Pennsylvania advertising executive had fallen asleep at her desk, her face propped in her hands, when she heard her boss’s voice at her side. Before raising her head, she murmured a quick, “Amen,” turned to greet him—and escaped a reprimand, says Paul Abercrombie, a Tampa, Fla., public-relations consultant who’s writing a book on combating stress at work.  The most popular hideout seems to be under one’s desk. One California software programmer naps there while holding a screwdriver, Mr. Abercrombie says. Then if someone discovers her, she emerges brandishing the tool and muttering, “That damn desk drawer went off-track again.”  Whoever coined the term “restroom” didn’t have this in mind, but for one San Francisco stock-and-options trader, the toilet stall is a perfect naproom. He sits on the closed seat, props his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees and—braced in a stable triangle—dozes for several minutes, he says,  All this gets easier if you have a closed office. When Jennifer Hudson wanted to take a snooze on a previous job, she posted a guard—a co-worker at a desk outside her office, who watched for approaching managers. Then, the Chicago public-relations specialist crawled under her desk and dozed off. Her co-worker doubled as her alarm clock, waking her up after 20 minutes.  Though many workplace nappers slip away to their cars for a nap, Russ Kletke didn’t have to go that far. To escape a slow-moving meeting at a hotel, he ducked into an adjacent room just vacated by another group and curled up under a table skirted by a floor-length curtain. Ten minutes later, Mr. Kletke, a Chicago strategic-communications consultant, slipped back into his meeting, refreshed.