Take a break

SPAIN’S siesta, a tradition still practised by those with the opportunity to take an afternoon snooze, now has academic backing.

University of California professor, Gloria Mark, said that brain slumps are real.

“The antidote to this mid ­ afternoon mind sludge isn’t muddling through,” she declared.

“It’s the opposite: You should take a break.”

A review published in 2022 also found that short breaks of no more than 10 minutes helped to diminish mental fatigue and improved the ability and willingness to produce quality work.

These breaks improved performance when performing creative tasks, the experts found, rather than activities like basic arithmetic.