In a recent study, researchers say napping two or three times a week might be good for your heart health. Experts say daily napping may be a sign of inadequate nighttime sleep.
New research published this past week suggests sleep is yet another thing we need with a Goldilocks-like balance, and napping a few times a week to catch up might help stave off cardiovascular-related incidents, such as heart attack.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Trusted Source reports that a third of adults in the United States don’t get the recommended 7 hours of sleep a night.
Getting that every night as an adult seems more like a pipe dream than attainable goal. We often suffer for it later, relying on caffeinated beverages to help us power through our day when we’d rather find a quiet spot in the office to doze off for .
The importance of sleep
Any medical professional will quickly tell you about the importance of getting a good night’s rest each and every day.
Our body and mind are configured to need to be powered off for about a third of their existence. Not doing so has a strong connection to many health problems, both mental and physical.
Sleep helps us recoup from stress and allows our vital organs time to rest. This is why not getting enough sleep can have a cascade of detrimental .
Researchers at the University of Tokyo in Japan — a culture where napping at work is seen as a sign of hard work — found 11 studies that showed naps and heart health appear to follow a J-shaped curve. That means the risks dip to a certain point but then shoot up later on.
The researchers stated that naps less than 30 minutes — commonly referred to as “power naps” — to be beneficial in preventing coronary heart disease, but they seem to have an opposite effect if people snooze for longer than that.
