Naps have been proven to increase energy and improve memory, and according to a British sleep guru, getting in a bit of a kip during the day doesn’t have to be complicated.

Nick Littlehales is a sleep coach to the stars. He trains elite athletes, like soccer heavyweight Cristiano Ronaldo, how to maximize their sleep.

His new book Sleep – The Myth of 8 Hours outlines the ingredients needed to score a perfect snooze during the day to recharge your batteries.

“It’s a little moment at the right time of day where you can get in a little sleep in to raise your alertness and awareness up to 54 per cent,” Littlehale told CTV News. “Instead of overstimulating through caffeine, which is a huge problem these days, or through overcompensating by taking sleeping tablets, it’s much better to just ‘zone out’ for 15 or 20 minutes. That will give you your boost and balance.”

Littlehales’ book is based on his theory that as a society we’ve moved away from the one big sleep at night to a more “polyphasic” way of resting.

“We’re sleeping for shorter periods at night and using natural midday and early evening periods to take a short period of sleep. It’s totally natural for us as humans,” said Littlehales.

According the sleep coach, our jobs are moving away from traditional hours making it impractical to get in an eight-hour sleep.

The perfect time to catch a few winks, according to Littlehales, is between 1-2 p.m. and 5-7 p.m., and a 30-minute sleep is the most practical. He suggests finding a quiet corner, a sofa or even a park bench during that ideal window of the day and to just “let go.”

Once you’ve woken up, Littlehales advises to take a moment to take in your surroundings and to hydrate.

A 2008 study done at the University of Düsseldorf in Germany has shown that even very short naps can enhance memory. A 1995 NASA study concluded that a 26 minute nap improves pilot performance for long-haul flights.

Toronto sleep expert Dr. Adam Moscovitch, medical director of the Sleep & Fatigue Institute, also shared his thoughts on naps with CTV News.

“The study done on pilots on transatlantic flights showed that roughly half an hour made a huge difference as far as performance and safety and also productivity,” Moscovitch said. “The trick is the nap has to be long enough so it has refreshing quality. If it’s too long you wake up with a sense of hangover, which we call inertia, and it takes a long time to recover from it.”

According to Moscovitch, if you want to get a perfect little nap in during your workday, drink a cup of coffee before you rest your head. Your nap should be over by the time the caffeine starts to take effect and wake you up.

Littlehales’ book is set to be released Oct. 27.

“If you look at the cover of the book there are no sheep, there are no zeds, and there’s no couple under the bed, it’s just a power button. So that tells you the story about what’s inside of it,” said Littlehales.