People who take naps regularly are at a higher risk of developing high blood pressure and getting a stroke or even dying. Yes, it is true! Napping too much could kill you.
This is according to a new study from a group of Chinese scientists and geriatric researchers at Central South University in Hunan, China, published in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal. The research was conducted by observing middle aged Europeans.
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It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? Isn’t taking an afternoon nap supposed to be refreshing and beneficial, especially for someone who did not get enough sleep at night? But now we have evidence that this may not be the case.
And everyone talks about the importance of getting a good night’s sleep for your health in general. Eight hours are said to be necessary for your heart and so on. Not getting enough sleep is what they say can cause hypertension and heart problems. So shouldn’t you take naps?
The aim of this study was to investigate the association between daytime napping frequency and the incidence of essential hypertension or stroke as well as to validate causality in this relationship via Mendelian randomization (MR).
The CDC explains that Mendelian randomization is a method of using measured variation in genes of known function to examine the causal effect of a modifiable exposure on disease in observational studies.
The researchers conducted Cox regression analysis on 358 451 participants free of hypertension or stroke from UK Biobank. Cox regression is defined as a method for investigating the effect of multiple variables upon the time that it takes for a quantified event to happen.
To validate the results of the observational analysis, the researchers conducted a 2-sample MR for daytime napping frequency (123 single-nucleotide polymorphisms) with essential hypertension in FinnGen Biobank, stroke, and ischemic stroke in MEGASTROKE consortium and performed a corresponding 1-sample MR on the UK Biobank data.
The study determined that Prospective observational and MR analyses provided evidence that increased daytime nap frequency may represent a potential causal risk factor for essential hypertension. The potential causal association of increased nap frequency with ischemic stroke was supported by 2-sample MR and prospective observational results.
But before you panic, remember that the issue deals with long naps at the wrong time of day. In general, a nap of no more than 30 minutes around mid-day is still OK. As long as you don’t sleep too much you won’t have trouble falling asleep at night and it won’t affect your body adversely.
