Some love the nap and practice it regularly. Yet these frequent sleep episodes increase the risk of high blood pressure and stroke.
- Hypertension can be defined as abnormally high blood pressure in the blood vessels.
- A stroke is manifested by a sudden loss of one or more functions of the brain caused by an intracerebral hemorrhage or by the sudden cessation of blood circulation inside the brain.
To compensate for the lack of sleep, health insurance recommends taking a nap in the afternoon but with a few guidelines: it should be short, i.e. 5 to 20 minutes, so as not to disturb nocturnal sleep and be between 12 and 15 hours.
A little reinforcement to give yourself energy, but which should not become a regular practice. Indeed, according to a recent study, published on July 25, 2022 in the journal Hypertensiontaking naps often in the afternoon would be harmful to your health.
Risky driving
The authors estimated that people who nap in the afternoon were 12% more likely to develop high blood pressure or 24% more to have a stroke. compared to those who did not sleep during the day. These results were obtained through the study of a database containing health information collected between 2006 and 2010, more than 500,000 British adults aged 40 to 69 years.
When it comes to profiles, in most cases, those who nap regularly “smoked, drank daily, had a lower level of education and income, and reported both insomnia and snoring”, according to the researchers.
Poor night sleep
But the authors reassure: the dangerousness depends above all on the context and the reason for this need for sleep, obviously correlated with the hygiene of life. “Although the nap itself is not dangerous, many people who take naps do so because of poor nighttime sleep which is associated with poorer health, and naps are not enough to compensate for this.”, explains Michael Grandner, clinical psychologist and sleep expert to the media CNN.
A previous study published in 2008 already pointed to the harmful effects of the siesta. According to the researchers, some people’s blood pressure increased after a nap, which could put them at greater risk of having a stroke.