A recent Stanford study has revealed that napping during the day, far from sapping cognitive abilities, actually improves attentiveness and working efficiency — a fact which many Stanford students seem to have known all along.

“I definitely feel more alert when I wake up from one of my ‘ten minute power naps,’” said senior Jay Huang, an Economics and Engineering double major. “Unfortunately, ten minutes usually becomes three hours once I snooze my alarm so many times that it dies, and then I’ve wasted a lot of productive time.”

Fear of such side effects to napping as Huang’s seems to explain why napping, while a regular pastime among college students, is an uncommon pursuit in the working world.

“Naps are not utilized in our culture because they have a negative connotation — people who nap are weak, lazy, et cetera,” said Dr. Steven Howard, associate professor of anesthesia and co-author of the study with Dr. Rebecca Smith-Coggins, associate professor of surgery.

The objective of the study was to “examine whether a 40-minute nap opportunity at 3 a.m. can improve cognitive and psychomotor performance in physicians and nurses working 12-hour night shifts.”

Howard said the study did provide “very solid scientific evidence” that naps “work to increase alertness and performance.”

Howard and colleagues are taking action based on the results of the study by implementing a Strategic Nap Program at the Portland, Oregon, Veteran’s Affairs Medical Center.

“This has never been attempted in health care,” Howard said.

Perhaps Stanford students instinctively know the benefits of napping because of the longstanding presence on campus of Dr. William Dement’s course “Sleep and Dreams,” a winter quarter psychiatry class that he will teach for the 37th time this term.

The study was not related to this class, although Howard called Dement one of his heroes.

Napping in college appears to be widespread, with Facebook groups such as “I Love Naps” boasting 69,741 members as of yesterday evening. Here, students discuss topics such as strange napping places and positions, amazing events they have slept through and sleep-walking adventures.