All students love a power nap but this futuristic chair takes afternoon snoozing to a whole new level.
Weary students in need of a boost can now clamber into a sleeping pod which has been installed at a Manchester University library.
The pod has been installed as part of an informal experiment into how napping can optimise the brain’s ability to learn and retain information.
Students are allowed 20 minutes of slumber inside the pod - installed in the “Zzz Zone” on floor 2 of the Alan Gilbert Learning Commons.
The pod was the brainwave of student Grace Bamber who entered her idea into the campus-wide Eureka! 2014 competition.
Not only does the hi-tech chair time how long a student naps, it provides ambient music and lighting to help the sleepy scholar relax away from their desk.
Yet researchers insist the pod is no a hang-over haven for party-mad students.
They say napping will only benefit students if naps are around 20 minutes long and taken in the early afternoon.
Dr Simon Kyle, a lecturer in clinical and health psychology at the university, said: “This is a very interesting idea. Scientific investigations have documented that daytime napping can reset the brain’s learning potential, which may be particularly important during the examination period.
“Students often sacrifice sleep in favour of social or university-related activities or the pre-exam “all-nighter”.
“But this may be naïve and potentially detrimental.
“Night-time sleep plays an important role in memory consolidation and determines our next day levels of vigilance and emotion regulation.
“With our increasing 24/7 society and the further erosion of night-time sleep opportunity, education on and appreciation of sleep must be encouraged amongst the student population.”
Dr Kyle said he did not advise making naps part of a person’s every day routine.
Instead, they should be reserved for times of sleep deprivation or high intensity learning - such as the exam period.
But the university isn’t the first organisation to trial the napping pods.
Forward-thinking companies such as Google have sleeping pods in their offices and in 2014 Michigan University introduced napping stations to their libraries.
