WE seem to be caught in a night-time sweat of sleep surveys at the moment.

One set of researchers has discovered that we don't necessarily need a solid, eight-hour block of sleep and shouldn't worry if we wake in the night (you cats and dogs at the back there, stop sniggering – oh, you're asleep); another has discovered that, contrary to popular belief, sleep quality "improves with age" (a new excuse for being late? "Sorry, I overslept – I turned 32 last week-")

Which begs the question, how do they know? How do they conduct the research? Is it similar to when you're just about to eat in the evening and the phone rings and a voice says: "Hello Sir, How are you today? My name is Kamar I am calling from [take your pick here – energy suppliers, mobile companies, sleep research bodies-]. Am I speaking to the account holder?" Only this happens at three in the morning and when you stumble to the phone and they ask: "Hello Sir, My name is Kamar. Are you happy with your current sleep, or would you like to switch to a different supplier?", you say: "Listen pal. I was dreaming about being asleep and having a dream in which I woke to discover I was still asleep dreaming about being asleep. Does that help? Now leave me alone."

Yet how can any of us sleep these days with so much to worry about? Not just the economic crisis, but more important things – like how you spell Humperdinck, are his sideburns still as magnificent and, for younger folk, who is this man with the ridiculous name that my parents/grandparents have gone all warm and nostalgic about?

Be even more honest, if you can bear it. Who wasn't fretting at 3am over Google's new privacy rules, lying in bed imagining their browsing history scrolling past them on the bedroom ceiling and out into the wider world so that everyone would know just what you had been looking at. Yes, we mean that site, the one with the pictures: www.GreatScottishDiesels.com (sorry to disappoint here – this is fictitious).

But it's worrying for the research bodies too. It's a competitive market out there – they're all seeking data and they don't all survive. One company faced legal action after it started a snooze-sharing service that allowed users to borrow other people's rest periods. Ah yes, how we all remember Napster-