10 September 2019LONDON, Sept 10 — New European research has found that taking a nap once or twice a week appears to be linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease events such as heart attack and stroke.
During a check-up, the researchers gathered information on the participants’ sleep and nap patterns in the previous week and then monitored their health for an average of five years., showed that occasional napping, defined as taking a daytime nap once or twice a week, was associated with a 48 per cent lower risk of fatal and non-fatal cardiovascular disease events, including heart attack, stroke, and heart failure, compared with those who didn’t nap at all.
No association was found between CVD events and taking three or more naps per week, or nap length, which ranged from five minutes to one hour and more. However, the researchers point out that as an observational study, the new findings cannot establish a cause and effect relationship. They also added that a limitation of the study is that it relied on participants’ self-reports of sleep patterns and naps, which can be subject to error.