NAPS: A USER'S GUIDE

YOU SNOOZE, YOU WIN. RESEARCH SHOWS THAT NAPPING CAN HAVE A POWERFUL EFFECT ON HEALTH AND COGNITION. THIS IS THE ART OF A SCIENTIFIC SIESTA...

-  IAN TAYLOR

Keep this to yourself but I am, quite literally, sleeping on the job. I'm sitting on my desk chair and should be writing this article that you're reading, but my eyes are closed and my forearms are relaxed on the arm rests, palms facing up. There's an apple in my left hand (I'll explain why in a second).

It's a peculiar scene, I'll grant you, but not one of abject laziness, whatever my wife tells you. I'm napping in the name of science, art and productivity. Some of history's greatest thinkers swore by the idea of a power nap, and scientific literature is beginning to suggest they were right to.

In recent years, researchers have found that a short doze can improve everything from memory and creativity to cardiovascular health and immune function. Napping is a superpower, it would seem, capable of restoring body and mind. Some have even described it as a public health intervention waiting to happen - not least because we're all so very tired.

As we know, adults need seven to nine hours of sleep a night. And as we also know, we're not getting it. Screen time, stress, caffeine habits and shift work are all to blame, but according to a YouGov poll earlier this year, one in eight Brits gets less than six hours of shuteye a night and a quarter of us use sleeping pills. Plus, if you believe marketing surveys from mattress companies, we build up more than 30 hours of sleep debt a month.

In turn, the British economy loses £30bn a year because of sleep loss. More importantly, chronic sleep disorders can increase a person's risk of high blood pressure and heart problems, as well as immune system dysfunction and obesity. No wonder sleep has become an obsession, something we track, hack and optimise.