Afternoon Naps Can Be Bad For Your Health

Normally I’d envy anyone who gets to take a nap every day… but not now. Science says your naps might kill you.

Researchers have found that sleeping for more than 40 minutes during the day, could lead to your premature death.

A study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 65th Annual Scientific Session found that taking long naps or being excessively tired during the day is associated with a higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome is a collection of health conditions including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, excess fat around the waist and high blood sugar that combine to increase a person’s risk of heart disease. Being over-tired in the day time is also associated with increased risk of metabolic syndrome.

The researchers found that specifically, napping for 40 minutes or longer greatly increased the risk of developing metabolic syndrome.

They analysed data from 21 observational studies involving more than 300,000 people.

Participants reported their level of daytime sleepiness by answering questions like, “Do you have a problem with sleepiness during the day,” and their napping habits by answering questions like “Do you take a daytime nap” or “Do you sleep during the day.” The researchers compared participants’ answers to their history of metabolic syndrome, type-2 diabetes and obesity.

The study’s lead author, Tomohide Yamada from the University of Tokyo, said

“Taking naps is widely prevalent around the world. So, clarifying the relationship between naps and metabolic disease might offer a new strategy of treatment, especially as metabolic disease has been increasing steadily all over the world.”

They found that participants who napped for less than 40 minutes didn’t show an increased risk for metabolic syndrome, but for those who went beyond 40 minutes, the risk sharply rose. Meanwhile napping for 90 minutes appeared to risk metabolic syndrome risk by as much as 50 per cent.

Unfortunately even if you don’t nap, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook – there was also an increased risk for those who said they were excessively tired during the day.

Napping for longer than an hour or being excessively tired during the day corresponded to a 50 percent increase in type 2 diabetes.

An earlier study published by the researchers in 2015 found that naps longer than an hour lead to an 92 per cent increase in cardiovascular disease and a 27 per cent increase in all causes of death.

“Sleep is an important component of our healthy lifestyle, as well as diet and exercise,” Dr Yamada said.

” Short naps might have a beneficial effect on our health, but we don’t yet know the strength of that effect or the mechanism by which it works.”

The studies showed a slight decrease in risk for their respective conditions when participants napped for less than half an hour. Naps of between 20 and 30 minutes are advocated by the National Sleep Foundation to improve alertness without leaving sleepers groggy afterwards.

Do you take afternoon naps?