In my experience in most parts of the USA and Canada at least (and I'd guess in many places in Northern Europe), napping in public places is frowned on except i

In my experience in most parts of the USA and Canada at least (and I'd guess in many places in Northern Europe), napping in public places is frowned on except in pretty specific cases - parks, beaches, etc where the purpose of being there is to relax. Of course you do see it on public transit in the early and late hours at times, and it's not a big deal, but its definitely not 'normal'. Napping at work is especially frowned upon, with perhaps the exception of someone going out to the park during lunch time. The general feeling/culture (not necessarily my personal opinion) is that you should have had enough sleep the night before so that you can be productive for the day's work. If you've stayed up so late (partying or whatever) the night before such that you need rest during the day, you're short-changing your employer and teammates. A nap might be the right thing to do to restore your energy, but you should not have put yourself in that position to start with. Of course these days I don't need to stay up half the night to feel like I need a nap in the afternoon... :) [edit] After reading the article, I see that the Japanese culture connects the tiredness with working hard/late, which changes the perception. I think in the US and Canadian culture this can happen in some extreme cases - we've all heard (or lived) stories of people working like crazy to meet project deadlines, and sleeping in the office, etc. And road-warriors fighting jet lag are often given some credit for that tired/haggard look. Blue collar workers are more prone to given respect for being particularly tired at the end of the day, but napping or dozing off is still not really rewarded/honored like it seems to be in Japan, because of the quite different work-time expectations.