14 hours a night: should we all sleep as much as Dakota Johnson? | Sleep

Name: Dakota Johnson.

Age: She’s 34.

She was in Fifty Shades of Grey, right? That was her breakthrough, yes, in 2015, starring as Anastasia Steele.

She’s from a starry family, isn’t she? Dakota’s mum is Melanie Griffith, her dad is Don Johnson and her gran is Tippi Hedren, Alfred Hitchcock’s muse.

And she has a famous boyfriend, too, I think? The Coldplay singer Chris Martin is her partner. They live together in Malibu.

Lovely. Was it a conscious coupling? More likely to be unconscious, as it happens …

How so? Johnson likes her sleep.

How much does she like it? “Sleep is my No 1 priority in life,” she said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal magazine.

No 1 in life! How many hours a night does she get? “I’m not functional if I get less than 10. I can easily go 14 hours.”

Fourteen! She’s like the opposite of Margaret Thatcher. Not a bad thing to be, some might say.

She’s a sloth! Not quite; sloths sleep for up to 20 hours.

Should I be getting 14 hours’ sleep? Almost certainly not. Everyone is different, but most adults need between seven and nine hours a night.

[Shouting up the stairs] GET UP, DAKOTA! BREAKFAST TIME! She’s not really a breakfast person. Just an oat milk flat white for her.

And then? She works out a lot: bodyweight training, hot yoga, pilates.

I’m thinking there’s going to be some mindfulness going on, too. Transcendental meditation, twice a day. “I’ve been really into breathwork recently and that’s been helping me a lot with anxiety.” She’s talked openly about anxiety and depression, and about using humour to “deflect”.

That’s good. It is. Healthy.

What else? She likes a bath.

Before going to bed? “At any moment, any time of the day. If, in the middle of the day, I’m like: ‘Oh God, what is this world?’ I’ll get in the bathtub. I find water really grounding.”

Then she goes to bed? She’s busy working, too, you know.

Oh, go on. Well, she’s been continuing to explore women’s sex lives, narrating The Disappearance of Shere Hite, a documentary about the feminist and sex educator. And she’s co-curated an exhibition at Miami’s new Museum of Sex, called Modern Sex: 100 Years of Design and Decency, which involved researching vibrators from the 20s and 30s. “They look like they are meant to work on cars. I’m like: ‘Oh my God, their poor vaginas.’”

I’m thinking there’s something familiar about the vaginas, the sexual wellness, yoga and meditation, almost a Gwynnie Goopiness … Martin certainly seems to have a type. Apparently, Gwyneth Paltrow, his ex-wife, and Johnson get on well.

Do say: “I absolutely loved you in Persuasion!”

Don’t say: “Wakey-wakey! Rise and shine!”