If you’re putting together a proposal on why afternoon naps should be a compulsory part of your work day, you’re very lucky to have stumbled across this.

We’re paraphrasing slightly, but NASA has decreed that we must all have a short snooze during the day because naps make us better people.

Most of us have heard that naps are supposed to be beneficial and it’s been common to think this was nothing more than an urban myth.

It’s not – it’s actual, credible science.

NASA’s incredibly wise scientists put a ‘napping study’ together in which pilots were divided into two groups: a ‘resting’ group and a ‘no rest’ group.

The ‘resters’ were allowed to take a 40-minute cockpit nap at some stage during the flight, while pilots in the ‘no rest group’ weren’t – poor things.

They found that pilots who napped performed much better than those who didn’t.

So the next time somebody tells you to change your napping ways, tell them science says, “Shhhh”.