Study links frequent napping to increased risk of high blood pressure and stroke

Now, this may seem bizarre to many of us. We love napping and honestly, there is no such thing called frequent napping! Napping is always less and never sufficient to many of us. Growing up we all have been told that sleeping and napping are good for our health.

However, a study has found something that may give you a few reasons before going for frequent napping. The study has been published in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal and has been conducted by a group of researchers from Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.

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The study found that people who nap often have a greater chance of developing high blood pressure and stroke which draws our attention to the fact that napping is good for health.

Napping is a brief period of sleep which is often taken during the day time. Unlike a night's sleep, napping is light and breaks easily. In many households people nap after lunch. Napping is also associated with digestion.

However, despite so many health benefits, napping for hours can put your health at risk.

The study says that napping is not bad for health but when people nap during daytime as a result of insufficient sleep during the night, it becomes a problem.

With this the general understanding is that poor sleep during night time hampers the overall health of an individual. Insufficient sleep does not give the body the right kind of break in order to rejuvenate itself before springing back into action.

The study was done on 3,58,451 participants from the UK Biobank who were free of hypertension or stroke during the beginning of the study.

The researchers found that in comparison to never napping, frequent napping was associated with a higher risk of essential hypertension, stroke, and ischemic stroke.

In the four year study, the participants were studied on the basis of the blood, urine, saliva samples and nap duration on a regular basis.

Not just this study, several other studies have talked about the risk of over-napping.

A 1996 research study had linked daytime napping with occurrence of depressive symptoms. It also said that those who took naps frequently during the daytime were likely to be overweight. "Frequent daytime nappers were more likely than infrequent nappers to report nighttime sleep complaints and were more likely to be male and urban-dwellers, to report more depressive symptoms, more limited physical activity, and more functional impairment, and were more likely to be overweight," the study said.

A research study presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress found that incidence of cardiovascular disease increased by 34% in those taking long naps. Considering long naps as more than 60 minutes, the study found that it was also associated with 30% higher risk of all-cause death.

A nap has several health benefits; it can provide the body a decent amount of stress during the day time but only if it is done in the right manner. Health experts recommend taking a power nap of a few minutes instead of sleeping for hours during the day time. Experts say napping beats fatigue and also keeps the brain efficient in functioning.

Ideal napping duration should be between 30 minutes to 60 minutes.

The obvious reason why people nap is because they get tired and the only possible explanation for this tiredness is insufficient sleep during night time.

Use of gadgets, following a lifestyle of remaining awake till late and sleeping till late in the morning, use of drugs, excessive alcohol consumption, over-stress are some of the common reasons why people these days are not getting sufficient sleep during night time.

Many people, workaholics mostly, consider sleep as a waste of time and think their body can run even with minimal sleep. However, it needs to be understood that sleep is an important biological activity and it should be religiously put into practice. A human adult needs minimum 8 hours of sleep everyday.