TO NAP OR NOT TO NAP

SLEEP expert Dr Neil Stanley says short power naps ‘are fine, but, frankly, some older people just nap out of boredom’.

‘If you sleep two hours during the day, you’ll only need six at night.’ The risk is that naps take the edge off night-time sleepiness, and while they might give you a short energy burst, longer sleeps ‘sabotage more complex functions, including memory, learning, emotional stability and complex recovery or decision making’, according to Professor Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist at the Center for Human Sleep Science, in California.