Prefecture-run Uto Junior and Senior High School in Uto, Kumamoto Prefecture, has made it a tradition to allow students to take a power nap after lunch. It introduced the daily routine nine years ago. (Kei Yoshida)

Photo/Illutration During “Utouto Time” after lunch, students take a power nap in a dimly lit classroom at the prefecture-run Uto Junior and Senior High School in Uto, Kumamoto Prefecture, while healing music plays faintly in the background. Photo taken Dec. 11, 2023 (Kei Yoshida)

UTO, Kumamoto Prefecture--Kids caught napping in the classroom at prefecture-run Uto Junior and Senior High School here are not punished. Quite the reverse. They are encouraged.

During the week, a voice comes over the intercom system toward the end of the lunch break at 1:17 p.m. to announce “Utouto Time is about to begin.”

A designated student in a classroom for first year seniors draws blackout curtains and turns off fluorescent lamps.

Three minutes later, healing music starts to play faintly in the dimly lit classroom as students rest their heads on crossed hands atop their desks.

Some try using their scarf as a pillow or covering their head in a towel to drop off while others fidget and have trouble dozing off.

Ten minutes later, an announcement pronounces the end to afternoon nap time.

The classroom curtains are opened, and the students go about their classroom cleaning duties.

“The key is setting the time to 10 minutes,” said Yuichi Goto, 42, a science teacher behind the power naps. Goto proposed the system nine years ago as a way to beat after-lunch drowsiness.

According to Goto, who also serves as an advisory teacher, non-REM sleep, which is marked by a lack of rapid eye movements, can be broken down into three stages depending on the depth of sleep. A sleeper can move into the second stage, or N2, during a 10-minute sleep.

The short nap can reduce sleepiness that has accumulated since the morning.

Students engage in classroom cleanup duties immediately after their nap to clear any lingering cobwebs so they can attend afternoon classes feeling refreshed.

Utouto Time was introduced in 2015.

In those days, the extra morning class was from 7:30 a.m. By the time the regular fifth period, the first class in the afternoon, came around, many students would begin dozing off.

A school survey found that about 90 percent of students felt drowsy, with 56 percent saying they experienced sleepiness in the first class in the afternoon.

Goto sought advice from Masashi Yanagisawa, a University of Tsukuba professor of sleep medicine, whom he knew from a joint training session that they attended. As a result, Goto took it upon himself to propose a power nap routine at the Kumamoto school.

His suggestion was greeted with incredulity.

However, the school introduced power naps on a trial basis for two weeks in July 2014 and received favorable reviews.

Goto invited Yanagisawa to give a lecture on the merits of power naps before the system was introduced on a daily basis.

The effort had an immediate effect.

About 60 percent of students said they fell asleep during the nap session, while at least 80 percent felt positive about the routine, according to a survey about Utouto Time.

Some students said they were able to concentrate better during classes, while others felt their performances improved when they participated in extracurricular club activities.

The number of students who visited the school nurse’s office dropped off.

“It helps cut sleepiness in the morning and after lunch and improves the quality of my activities and classes in the afternoon,” said Naoto Komeda, a 16-year-old senior high schooler.

Goto, noting a deep-rooted tendency in Japan to admire those who forsake sleep to study, work or exercise, expressed appreciation for a growing understanding that sufficient sleep can pay off in all sorts of ways,

“I find it meaningful to make efforts at the school to help students sleep better when our views on sleep are changing,” Goto added.

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