The prime minister is said to be partial to a quick daytime snooze perhaps he’s onto something

John Naish

The Times

Gerry Gajadharsingh writes:

“I’ve blogged about having a siesta before which I tend to take at weekends after a very long working week in London, where I don’t get much sleep. One of my problems is that it tends to go on for longer than 20 minutes! What I found interesting was the advice regarding drinking caffeine before you have your power nap. It takes about 20 to 30 minutes to kick in and apparently the combination of the power nap followed by an energising drink may well work wonders. So, I’ll be trying this with my soon to be commercially launched Uplifting Tonics, containing two forms of natural caffeine and a host of other functional ingredients to optimise energy pathways!

Should we all emulate Boris Johnson by taking a 20-minute power nap every afternoon, in the interests of boosting our productivity, morale and health — or at least escaping lockdown for a while? A source close to the prime minister has let slip on Times Radio that Johnson is known to shut his No 10 office door for a half-hour nap between meetings to “get him ready for the rest of the day”.

The Downing Street insider revealed: “It would not be entirely uncommon in the diary for him to shut the door and have a kip for half an hour or so — a power executive business nap to get him ready for the rest of the day.”

In doing so, Johnson is sleeping with the best of them. Michelle Obama has advocated the habit and Arnold Schwarzenegger says he likes to lie down for an hour if he’s feeling sleepy.

The prime minister can also claim ample precedent from his hero, Winston Churchill, who had beds installed in his private offices, in parliament and in his wartime bunker at the Cabinet War Rooms. Churchill learnt the joy of naps while working as First Lord of the Admiralty during the First World War.

In The Gathering Storm, his Second World War memoir, he declared: “Nature had not intended mankind to work from eight in the morning until midnight without the refreshment of blessed oblivion, which, even if it only lasts 20 minutes, is sufficient to renew all the vital forces.” He was also known to take to his bed when dispatches brought news of battlefront disasters.

Johnson’s need to power nap seems entirely reasonable. We’re told that by 6am the prime minister is up, out and running around Buckingham Palace’s gardens before beginning his typical 12-hour days with a working breakfast. Why not sneak in a quick lie-down?

Medical research certainly confirms the restorative powers of a quick snooze. Neuroscientists at the National University of Singapore concluded last year that short naps perk up our brains by improving their ability to learn and remember. They reported in the journal Sleep that brief dozes particularly revive the hippocampus, an area of the brain responsible for forming new memories.

Our hearts can benefit too. A study of 500 Swiss adults in the journal Heart in 2019 found that daytime naps may reduce our risk of suffering coronaries and strokes. This benefit accrued from taking a daytime nap only once or twice a week. More frequent nappers didn’t enjoy the same advantage. Why? It may be that they sleep a lot because their physical health is already poor.

The whens and hows of napping are vital to ensure that a brief shut-eye does you good rather than ill, says Dr Lindsay Browning, a neuroscientist and expert at the sleep clinic trouble sleeping. “Power napping is great for boosting your alertness, but it has to be done at the right time in the right way,” she explains. Lunchtime or early afternoon are optimal, Browning says. “Anything after 2pm and it will detract from your ability to sleep at night.”

Moreover, she says we should not nap for longer than 20 minutes; “Longer than 30 minutes and you go into the deep part of sleep. You’ll wake groggy with sleep inertia and feel horrible.”

Any daytime nap is a bad idea if you have trouble getting to sleep at night because it reduces the sleep drive that you steadily build up during the waking day. “It’s similar to snacking ruining your appetite for a large healthy meal,” Browning says.

There is, however, potentially a better alternative to daytime power naps at this time of year — a walk outside at lunchtime when natural sunlight is strongest. “This precious daylight is important for properly regulating our circadian rhythm, which is in danger of going awry if we stay cooped indoors all day,” Browning says. “For this reason, I would say that a lunchtime walk is more useful than a daytime nap.”

Optimally, however, you could try fitting both into your day. There would certainly be no harm in that. Just ask Dr Neil Stanley, the director of science for the sleep-improvement programme sleep station.org.uk and a self-confessed napper.

“If I feel sleepy in the afternoon while working from home, I’m only 3ft from my bed, so what’s the problem?” he asks. “Daytime napping isn’t a sign of weakness. It is a sign of someone trying to get through long days as productively as possible.”

Stanley even sees benefits in the extreme end of power kips, the “caffeine nap”, which has become popularised on the internet as a way to get the absolute most out of a quick lie-down. Quite simply, you take a sharp caffeine jolt just before putting your head down, then wake up flying. “The caffeine takes 30 minutes to take full effect. So if you drink coffee before a 20-minute nap, it will kick in as you wake, intensifying the boost you get from sleep,” he says.

Many caffeine-nappers are doing it wrongly in his view because they rely on coffee or tea for the drug hit. “These are bad delivery systems because you don’t know how much you’re getting; it could be hardly anything or so much that you overdose and it makes you tired. Energy drinks, by contrast, give you a measured dose,” he says.

One wonders if Johnson is powering his true-blue naps with Red Bull. We may never know, because Downing Street is keen to smother the story. A spokesman says that the prime minister actually has no time for naps because his days are filled with meetings.

We could try phoning Johnson to get the definitive lowdown on his lie-downs, but we wouldn’t want to wake him.