Sleep tech Japanese workers turn to gadgets to perfect their power naps

The Spanish have their siestas and millions of French people exercise their right to a postprandial power nap. The Japanese equivalent is the hirune - an afternoon snooze that goes some way towards compensating for their lack of sleep.

- Justin McCurry 

With long commutes, punishing working hours and the bare minimum of sleep at night, it is little wonder that so many workers succumb to the power nap; more than 40% get less than six hours of sleep a night, according to a recent government survey.

Now the business of sleep has spawned an industry devoted to achieving the perfect nap, said by experts to be an undisturbed period of up to about 20 minutes, beyond which the body starts to fall into a deeper sleep, leaving people feeling groggy when they wake up.

In Japan, exhausted employees are turning to gadgets, from deskmounted headrests and heated eye masks, in a quest to emerge from their afternoon nap refreshed and bursting with productivity.