Children, worries, aches and pains, heatwave, a bedtime that’s just too late (and a getting up time that’s too early) – it seems like there are long lists of problems that can interfere with our sleep. We can become so exhausted that we run on adrenaline, finding it impossible to tell if we’re sleep-deprived or just tired out from the demands of life.

Now Dr Clare Bailey Mosley and her son Dr Jack Mosley have shared a simple trick that tells you whether or not you need more sleep.

‘This is a surprisingly easy way to tell if you’re sleep-deprived,’ says Dr Clare.

‘We all know getting a good night’s sleep is vital for physical and mental wellbeing,’ says Dr Jack Mosley. ‘Everyone talks about needing eight hours, but the recommended range for most adults is actually 7-9 hours. Some people naturally need a little less, while others function best with more.’

So how do you know if you’re sleep-deprived? One good way of telling if you are sleep-deprived is the spoon test – otherwise known as the sleep latency test. It is quite simple. Go to bed at 1pm, lie down in a dark, quiet room and see how quickly you fall asleep holding a spoon over the side of the bed, with a plate on the floor underneath. As you drift off, the spoon will fall and wake you up. And you time how long that takes.

‘If you fall asleep within 10 mins, you’re probably a bit sleep-deprived,’ he says. ‘If you stay awake for over 15 minutes, you’re probably fine. To do this properly, you need to avoid caffeine in the morning, which I’m not going to lie, I have cheated on.

‘Daytime sleepiness is a good overall indicator of “sleep debt” and this is an indicator of whether you are getting enough good-quality sleep at night.’ So why not give it a go?