48. Seven- and eight-year-olds get it right. According to the National Sleep Foundation, they need ten to eleven hours of sleep, and they get it. This makes sense; they don’t have a mortgage to worry about. Sleep is important. If you don’t get eight hours of sleep, you might die. Not to be morbid—you might die anyway, but not sleeping isn’t helping your odds.
My secret to getting some sleep and increasing longevity? Naps.
There are two camps: people who nap and people who wouldn’t dare. Most of the non-nappers have an outdated outlook. I’m not talking a two-hour siesta here. Ten minutes.* It’s the novella of naps versus the unabridged version.
One power nap a day can save your life. Before I had a sofa in my office, I slept under my desk in case my assistant, Marlene, walked in without knocking. I set the alarm for ten minutes, popped up like a prairie dog when it rang, and scampered off to my next meeting reinvigorated.
* Some experts even suggest having coffee before the nap, since the caffeine takes ten minutes to kick in.