Categories
News on Health & Science

Siesta may save your heart

[amazon_link asins=’B0057IC83C,B073PYBQM2,B01JED7W8G,B00IUGT7V4,B012DGEC9I,B0150GK62A,B01N7K3FBK,B073PZDZB1,B01MY4L8BV’ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’finmeacur-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’a148d5fb-6137-11e7-899b-8dd5d86aa5dd’][amazon_link asins=’B01A9E61SQ,B01K7Y1R5A,B071XPC7SH,B06ZZRYG73,B07223HTH4,B071Y7YM5S,B071Y7W7Z9,B071Y7JZFK,B071Y7DKNL’ template=’ProductCarousel’ store=’finmeacur-20′ marketplace=’US’ link_id=’6b9c4b69-6137-11e7-8506-1f394f28a463′]

Sleeping a little over half-an-hour in the middle of the day may reduce the risk of death from heart disease, particularly in healthy young men, say researchers.

Naps – known as siesta – are often taken early afternoon after a mid-day meal. Such a period of sleep is a common tradition in hot countries.

Dimitrios Trichopoulos from the Harvard School of Public Health and other researchers looked at 23,681 men and women aged between 20 and 86 who did not have a history of heart disease or any other severe condition, reported the online edition of BBC News .

The six-year Greek study took into account ill health, age, and whether people were physically active. Participants were also asked if they took mid-day naps and how often, and were asked about dietary habits and physical activity.

The researchers found those who took naps of any frequency and duration had a 34 per cent lower risk of dying from heart disease than those who did not take mid-day naps.

Those who took naps of more than 30 minutes three or more times a week, had a 37 per cent lower risk. Among working men who took mid-day naps, there was a 64 per cent reduced risk of death compared with a 36 per cent reduced risk among non-working men.

Experts said napping during afternoon might help people to relax, reducing their stress levels. The researchers added that if backed by other trials, taking a siesta would be an interesting way of reducing heart disease as it had no side effects.

The only important factor was that people should not reduce the amount of physical activity they did in the rest of the day.

Source:The Times Of India

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

css.php