We all need it. In fact pretty much every sentient organism cannot survive without it. Humans need on average seven and a half hours shut-eye a night to function normally. Believe it or not, dolphins sleep with half of their brain at a time so that they can continue to surface regularly to breathe.

In the past few years, I have had so many things on the boil at once that I was just never capable of getting the sleep that I needed. I have always been a night owl. I could be knackered all day, stagger home from work, yet when I get in late – BINGO! – wide-a-fuckin’-wake again. I’d nod off at 3am, be forced to get up stupidly early for work, and the whole cycle would start again.

I stopped drinking coffee and cut down my alcohol, started taking more regular exercise, basically tried every trick in the book except medication and nothing seemed to sort out my sleeping patterns.

I can run marathons, scale buildings (not quite in a single bound just yet) and bite my own toe-nails but the hardest thing I seem to do on a regular basis is get out of bed. I hate it. Having to force the fug from my head and stumble around getting ready to spend an hour and a half travelling to a job that bores me senseless – I’d much rather pull the duvet over my head and have five more minutes!

Lately, however, I seem to have sussed it. I think my body has given up trying to mess me around. Years spent in the army have left me with a built-in ability to grab sleep wherever and whenever I can. I get my four hours a night, I have a 20min snooze on the bus to work and grab a 20min top-up schlarf at lunchtime.

Life is too busy and hectic to spend it unconscious, tempting though that might be. If you’re going to burn the candle at both ends, and scrape the wax off in the middle and set fire to that bit too, then you have to compromise somewhere.

Vive la siesta!