Napping is arguably our favourite pastime, but how long and when should we be catching some Z's to make the most of our snooze? Afternoon or early evening? A quick 10 minutes or an hour?
A number of studies have already proved that napping is good for us, with one finding a nap to be as effective as drugs when it comes to lowering blood pressure. Like we needed an excuse.
So, let's start with how long we should be napping for. While there's no definitive rule on how long we should be nodding off for, the majority of researchers believe longer isn't always better.
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According to Dominique Antiglio, Sophrologist and author of The Life-Changing Power of Sophrology, 20 minutes is the perfect nap length. TWENTY MINUTES?!
Sleep expert Dominique told Pretty52: "Keep it to a power nap of 20 minutes so your body doesn't feel like it has been deprived of sleep and so it doesn't affect your rhythm for the evening, there's a difference between a nap and sleep.
"You should wake up feeling refreshed, alert and re-energised after 20 minutes."
Other sleep experts agree that naps should be kept to around 20 minutes. Aneesa Das, MD, a sleep medicine specialist at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, said: "Your nap should be 20-30 minutes. That way, you'll be re-energised without affecting your nighttime sleep."
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However, if you do want to take a longer nap (because, why wouldn't that be a good idea?) you should get through an entire sleep cycle to make sure you don't wake up feeling groggy.
Sara Mednick, an associate professor at the University of California at Irvin recently told Women's Health: "A 90-minute nap can help you decompress and get creative juices flowing, because it covers a full sleep cycle, taking you from the lightest to deepest stages of sleep and back so you wake up refreshed."
So, it seems like 20 minutes is the perfect pick-me-up, whereas 90 minutes allows you to make it through all the stages of sleep and allows you to wake up fully refreshed.
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When it comes to the time you should be napping, a recent study found that snoozing at midday can help lower your blood pressure.
Researchers also claimed the daytime snooze could also majorly reduce our chances of having a heart attack. So, is it time to start mithering work for nap pods?
However, Dominique believes timings depend entirely on each person's circadian rhythm, although it's often around lunchtime or mid-afternoon.
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She explains: "Nap times should vary for each person according to their own circadian rhythm, and your body will show signs such as heavy eyes, a tired or sluggish body, frequent yawning - so you just need to look for them as a precursor to a nap."
Needless to say, a 20 minute-long nap during lunch sounds good to us.
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