Heart & Health Benefits from Napping
The Restful Heart
Naps get a bad rap.
If you’re a busy person, you might feel like a slacker if you indulge in a weekday afternoon nap. And heaven help you if you get caught napping at work – you’ll probably never live it down.
But new research has added to a growing body of evidence that suggests a brief nap is not a lazy indulgence at all – it’s actually an indulgence in good health.
Less is more
My friend Greg claims to have perfected the nap.
Greg explains that many years ago when he was learning to meditate, he was told that the brain wave frequency of a sleeping brain is around 5 Hz, while the frequency of a wide-awake brain is around 13 Hz. When you’re dozing off to sleep and experience that unusual sensation of being partly awake while the first odd details of a dream begin to take shape, your brain waves are in a middle zone – somewhere between 5 and 13 Hz. People who meditate learn to control that zone where the brain is relaxed but alert.
When Cornell psychology professor and sleep specialist Dr. James Maas coined the term “power nap” in the late 90s, Greg says he knew immediately what Dr. Maas was referring to.
A power nap is a brief nap (15 to 25 minutes) in which the brain doesn’t dip into deep sleep, but hovers at the low end of that middle zone. After he learned to meditate, Greg started taking daily power naps that rarely last more than 20 minutes. When he awakes, he never feels groggy or cranky. Just the opposite. He says he always wakes up feeling refreshed, alert, and ready to get back to work.
And an added bonus: These naps are probably helping Greg’s heart stay healthy.
East & West
Last year, in his Daily Dose e-letter, William Campbell Douglass II, M.D., reported on a study in which 32 middle-aged and elderly subjects were asked to take afternoon naps. Results showed that the naps didn’t interfere with night sleep – in fact, some subjects found they slept better at night. In addition, the subjects had better scores on memory and mental acuity tests during the portion of the study when they were napping daily.
A new joint study from the Harvard School of Public Health and the University of Athens reveals another health benefit associated with daytime naps.
As reported this month in the Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers recruited more than 23,600 Greek subjects who answered questionnaires that revealed specifics about their napping habits as well as health and lifestyle details. At the outset of the study, none of the subjects had a history of heart disease, stroke or cancer.
After a follow up period of about six years, the researchers adjusted data to account for dietary and lifestyle factors that might skew the outcome. The results: Subjects who took frequent naps were nearly 35 percent less likely to die from heart disease compared to subjects who rarely napped
Subjects who said they napped for at least 30 minutes at least three times each week had an even lower risk of heart disease
Working men who took occasional naps enjoyed the greatest protection – they were nearly 65 percent less likely to die from heart disease compared to subjects who rarely napped
Non-working men who took occasional naps were 36 percent less likely to die from heart disease
When women were examined as a subgroup, so few of them died from heart disease that the researchers were not able to develop a similar analysis.
In an interview with the Washington Post, lead researcher Dimitrios Trichopoulos, M.D., noted that globalization is bringing American work habits to many countries where siestas have long been an accepted part of the culture. Meanwhile, back here in the U.S., some companies such as Nike, Pizza Hut, AT&T, and Metropolitan Life have been trying out the concept of naptime for employees.
Although more research will be necessary to establish a clear link between napping and heart health, Dr. Trichopoulos offered this simple advice: “If you have an opportunity to take a nap, then, yes, do it.”
