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Passage 2

For centuries in Spain and Latin America, heading home for lunch and a snooze with the familywas some thing like a national right, but with global capitalism standardizing work hours, this idyllichabit is fast becoming an endangered pleasure. Ironically, all this is happening just as researchers arebeginning to note the health benefits of the afternoon nap.

According to a nationwide survey, less than 25 percent of Spaniards still enjoy siestas. And likeSpain, much of Latin America has adopted Americanized work schedules, too, with shortened lunchtimes and more rigid work hours. Last year the Mexican government passed a law limiting lunchbreaks to one hour and requiring its employees to work their eight-hour shift between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m.

Before the mandate, workers would break up the shift--going home midday for a long break withthe family and returning to work until about 9 or 10 p.m. The idea of siesta is changing in Greece,Italy and Portugal, too, as they rush to join their more "industrious" counterparts in the globalmarket.

Most Americans I know covet sleep, but the idea of taking a nap mid-afternoon equates withlaziness, un employment and general sneakiness. Yet according to a National Sleep Survey poll,65percent of adults do not get enough sleep. Numerous scientific studies document the benefits of naptaking, including one 1997 study on the deleterious effects of sleep deprivation in the journal Inter-nal Medicine. The researchers found that fatigue harms not only marital and social relations butworker productivity.

According to Mark Rosekind, a former NASA scientist and founder of Solutions in Cupertino,Calif., which educates businesses about the advantages of sanctioning naps, we′ re biologically pro-grammed to get sleepy between 3 and 5 p.m. and 3 and 5 a.m. Our internal timekeeper--called thecircadian clock--operates on a 24-hour rotation and every 12 hours there′s a dip. In accordancewith these natural sleep rh