Take A Nap For The Sake Of Your Heart

In a study carried out in Greece, researchers found that adult males who took an afternoon nap at least three times per week were 37% less likely to die from a heart related disease compared to men who never take a short afternoon nap. Okay, so you may still have your doubts, but if these claims false, then why would NASA scientists be studying this as well?

In many countries, it is custom to have a nap (siesta) after lunch, and coincidentally, nearly all such countries have a very low rate of fatal heart attacks. On the other end of the scale we have countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. In these countries, heart attacks are the leading cause of death, and as most of us know, neither of these two societies advocate afternoon naps. In fact, taking a short nap in the afternoon could end up costing you your job.

Okay, so we now know that napping is beneficial in terms of heart health, but what are the other benefits of napping? There are several, but since the title of this article suggests that I'm going to discuss six benefits, so that's what I'm going to do. Right, we have five more to cover; here they are:

• Improved cognitive performance
• Increased alertness
• Improved memory
• Improved relaxation
• Stress reduction

“Napping is particularly great for alertness, learning, memory, and performance — and we've known this now for several decades.

A groundbreaking NASA study from 1995 (pdf) looked at the beneficial effects of napping on 747 pilots. Each participant was allowed to nap for 40 minutes during the day, sleeping on average for 25.8 minutes (which is just about right). Nappers “demonstrated vigilance performance improvements from 16% in median reaction time to 34% in lapses compared to the No-Rest Group.”

Think that grabbing a cup of coffee in the middle of the afternoon does just as well?

Think again. A 2008 study showed that naps are better than caffeine when it comes to improving verbal memory, motor skills, and perceptual learning. Afternoon naps improved free recall memory compared to the caffeine group after both 20 minutes and seven hour intervals, while resulting in improved learning on physical tasks than caffeine. It should be noted, however, that the researchers had their participants nap between 60 and 90 minutes. A cup of joe might be a tad more efficient. But as noted in the study, caffeine has been known to impair motor sequence learning and declarative verbal memory.

 enlightened-planet.com