Los periódicos internacionales tan ineptos como los españoles:

La prensa internacional y los tópicos de la siesta española


Nos pasamos el día cantando flamenco, dando palmas, bebiendo rebujitos, vestimos de faralae y nos echamos siestas de tres horas todos los días... Ojalá. Esto es lo que parece que la prensa internacional y sobretodo la británica piensa de nosotros y han vuelto a manifestarlo tras el último revuelo causado por Rajoy y el cambio de horario laboral. La propuesta de Rajoy consiste en que la jornada laboral termine con carácter general a las 18.00 y cambiar el huso horario para que la pen ...


Leer mas: La prensa internacional y los tópicos de la siesta española



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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/04/05/time-to-wake-up-spains-prime-minister-wants-to-end-the-siesta/?tid=sm_tw

Time to wake up! Spain’s prime minister wants to end the siesta.

¿Adiós a la siesta?


Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy wants to end a long-standing and well-recognized tradition: the mid-afternoon break.

Under new legislation, Spain would switch back to Greenwich Mean Time and do away with siestas, the sleep-filled breaks some Spaniards take.
“I will find a consensus to make sure the working day ends at 6 p.m.,” Rajoy said, according to the London Times.

He made the push at a party conference over the weekend, where he tried to court other parties, unions and business leaders to support the idea,according to the Standard.

Traditionally, the Spanish work day begins at 10 a.m. and is split in half by a two- to three-hour break known as the siesta. Spaniards traditionally leave at 2 p.m. and return to work around 4 or 5, according to The Times. The work day typically ends at 8 p.m. (As some readers note, not all Spaniards partake in the siesta; many follow schedules closer to a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. work day.)

[How much sleep do you need? An expert panel releases its recommendations.]

This isn’t the first time Spain has considered ending the practice.
In 2012, the government loosened restrictions to allow stores to stay open as much as 25 percent longer each week, a move that threatened the tradition, Bloomberg News reported at the time. A year later, a parliamentary commission called for both of Rajoy's proposals: The introduction of a 9-to-5 workday (he suggests it should end at 6 p.m.) and the time-zone switch.
Despite sitting in the middle of the Western European time zone, Spain observes Central European time, a change made decades ago in solidarity with Adolf Hitler’s Germany.

“Because of a great historical error, in Spain we eat at 2 p.m., and we don't have dinner until 9 p.m., but according to the position of the sun, we eat at the same time as the rest of Europe: 1 p.m. and 8 p.m.,” Nuria Chinchilla, director of the International Center on Work and Family at the IESE Business School, told the Guardian in 2013. “We are living with 71 years of jet-lag, and it’s unsustainable.”

The word siesta derives from the Latin word sexta, or sixth hour, according to the Atlas of Sleep Medicine. Some believe the practice evolved out of a desire to avoid the crushing midday heat, but according to the authors of that book — all Mayo Clinic researchers — people in colder climates were also known to have followed a similar tradition.

Researchers have reported that siestas may provide certain health benefits. Just last month, the peer-reviewed Journal of Human Hypertension published a study that found a significant relationship between siesta and decreased prevalence of hypertension. In 2007, a group of researchers found that, among more than 23,000 Greek adults studied, those who regularly took siestas were significantly less likely to die of heart disease.


Spain might finally get rid of its country-wide nap time

http://nypost.com/2016/04/04/spain-might-finally-get-rid-of-its-country-wide-nap-time/Spain’s prime minister wants to shorten the working day — by saying adios to the siesta.

A typical Spanish worker now checks in at about 10 a.m., takes a two-hour mid-afternoon snooze, and then clocks out around 8 p.m.

But center-right PM Mariano Rajoy wants to get rid of nap-time, and make Spain more like its European counterparts.

“I will find a consensus to make sure the working day ends at 6 p.m.,” declared Rajoy.

The Spanish siesta has been in place for centuries, since before the Industrial Revolution when workers needed an hours-long break to take cover from the day’s hottest hours.

But Spanish workers’ average productivity is much lower than in places such as Germany, a Spanish parliamentary commission said in a 2013 report.

Over the years, modern Spaniards across the political spectrum have pushed Madrid to align their workday with other European nations.

Rajoy’s support is seen as an attempt to curry favor with voters ahead of the general election in June, the Independent reported.

The move could have a widespread impact on all Spanish life.

Prime-time television now runs from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. in Spain. Midweek soccer matches, in Spain’s La Liga, typically kick off at 8:30 p.m.

Rajoy also wants to bring Spain back to Greenwich Mean Time.

Even though Spain is directly south of England, it’s been an hour ahead of GMT for more than seven decades.

The time change dates to when Generalissimo Francisco Franco ordered the nation’s clocks put forward in a symbol of unity with Nazi Germany.