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Science

Short Daytime Naps May Keep Brain Healthy as It Ages, Study Says (theguardian.com) 47

Taking a short nap during the day may help to protect the brain's health as it ages, researchers have suggested after finding that the practice appears to be associated with larger brain volume. From a report: While previous research has suggested long naps could be an early symptom of Alzheimer's disease, other work has revealed that a brief doze can improve people's ability to learn. Now researchers say they have found evidence to suggest napping may help to protect against brain shrinkage. That is of interest, the team say, as brain shrinkage, a process that occurs with age, is accelerated in people with cognitive problems and neurodegenerative diseases, with some research suggesting this may be related to sleep problems.

"In line with these studies, we found an association between habitual daytime napping and larger total brain volume, which could suggest that napping regularly provides some protection against neurodegeneration through compensating for poor sleep," the researchers note. Writing in the journal Sleep Health, researchers at UCL and the University of the Republic in Uruguay report how they drew on data from the UK Biobank study that has collated genetic, lifestyle and health information from 500,000 people aged 40 to 69 at recruitment. The team used data from 35,080 Biobank participants to look at whether a combination of genetic variants that have previously been associated with self-reported habitual daytime napping are also linked to brain volume, cognition and other aspects of brain health.

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Short Daytime Naps May Keep Brain Healthy as It Ages, Study Says

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  • Whew. . . (Score:5, Funny)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @03:08PM (#63618870)
    Whew! I guess I'm not just old and worn out. Turns out that I'm just preserving my brain for later.

    Now I feel a lot better about asking the waitress for another Tom Collins so I can help induce this restful state.
  • by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @03:09PM (#63618872)

    Narcolepsy [wikipedia.org] gets one in the "Pro" column. :-)

    • The researchers in this study suggest that taking a short nap during the day could have a positive impact on brain health as individuals age. They found that individuals who regularly engaged in daytime napping had larger total brain volume, which could potentially protect against neurodegeneration. Previous research had indicated that long naps might be an early sign of Alzheimer's disease.I've read about this here https://essays.edubirdie.com/b... [edubirdie.com] there are a lot of useful essays and not only!You can fin
  • by Nrrqshrr ( 1879148 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @03:15PM (#63618894)

    For most of human history, humanity always had a bi-phasic or mult-iphasic sleep pattern. Only with the industrial revolution, and the need to maximize daylight usage, did we stop taking naps and started just going through our entire sleep schedule in one block. Plenty of research showed that a daily nap of as little as 30 minutes was extremely beneficial.
    Now we're rediscovering the wheel... again.

  • by aRTeeNLCH ( 6256058 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @03:26PM (#63618928)
    So endless meetings do serve a purpose...
  • "Si, Senor, I take siesta to protect my brain!"

  • Having napped profitably in libraries around the world from Beijing to Paris, how shocked was I to see guards in Washington state's Timberland Regional Library, and also Bellevue Public Library, kicking the chairs of napping patrons? Do they want us to be dumber, just like them?

  • by ZipNada ( 10152669 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @04:03PM (#63619016)

    I've taken a 15-minute nap in the middle of the afternoon for years. Often I'll fall completely asleep for those few minutes and wake up feeling much refreshed.

    But I caution against a longer nap. That will make you feel groggy and it might mess up your night time sleep cycle.

  • by u19925 ( 613350 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @04:16PM (#63619054)

    In India, many businesses used to close for 3 hours in the afternoon (12-3 or 1-4). Even today, many retail places are closed in the mid-day. Even doctors are off in the afternoon. Many Indian restaurants in US are closed from 2-5 pm. Even many housewives take nap after service lunch to family.

    Primary reason was that people go home for lunch, and then they take nap and reopen the business. This worked in traditional businesses close to your home. With increasingly modern economy, the number of people taking break is reducing.

    • What I have seen in (modern post-war) Vietnam: office workers adapting the area under a cubicle desk as a post-lunch nap bunk. I saw it again with China colleagues posted to the US, and in documentary footage of Huawei offices. In the US we schedule meetings right after lunch, then keep a few ping pong balls handy to toss at anyone who starts snoring.
  • by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @04:35PM (#63619100)

    Last week you told us afternoon naps were an early sign of Alzheimer's.

    • by Major_Disorder ( 5019363 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @05:27PM (#63619236)

      Last week you told us afternoon naps were an early sign of Alzheimer's.

      You can't expect them to remember that. They have not been napping since that report came out.

    • There's no reason to see that as a contradiction or surprise. It's like finding an association between people who have a lot of headaches and people who take a lot of aspirin. Shouldn't you expect that your body would prompt you to do something that helps with the problems it's experiencing? If your brain is struggling to function, you'll take more naps to try to recharge it... but obviously that doesn't make you immortal or remove the Alzheimer's.

    • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @09:22PM (#63619784)

      Last week you told us afternoon naps were an early sign of Alzheimer's.

      Even more ridiculous, they claim sleep is both a sign of fatigue and supposedly a treatment for it!!

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      Huh, if only there were some qualifiers on that statement to provide more information. If only the correct findings were provided in the summary!

      • "Huh, if only there were some qualifiers on that statement to provide more information. If only the correct findings were provided in the summary!"

        You RTFS?

        I'd say you're new here, welcome, but your uid says you're not.

        • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          The way it works is someone makes a comment after only reading the title, and the rest of of enjoy pointing out that their objection is so basic that even the poorly copy/pasted summary addresses it.

          Usually the summary is such shit that doesn't happen, so we have to settle for the considerably less satisfying "reading the article" or even "Googling it."

    • The two facts do not contradict each other. Just as a fever is the body's way of helping to repel an infection, the naps may be a natural reaction to try to preserve what it can in the brain.

  • I could take a 15min siesta at work everyday
  • I work night shift

  • by Tony Isaac ( 1301187 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @05:54PM (#63619318) Homepage

    Our bodies have an amazing way of telling us what it needs, and how much, and when, if we just listen. That's true whether t's food, water, or sleep that we're talking about. Science is just now getting around to figuring out how well-designed and calibrated our body's systems are.

    • by znrt ( 2424692 )

      That's true whether t's food

      that's not really true for food today. hunger is driven by ghrelin which stops being secreted when your stomach is full, and accumulates when it is empty (gross but illustrative simplification). this has been an appropriate mechanism to regulate energy intake for millions of years of evolution while food was scarce or cumbersome to consume. with today's high availability of high energy foods (particularly junk food) it doesn't really work and actually contributes to endemic obesity. today hunger is one of t

      • Yeah the need for a power bar to get through the day is silly. The truth is, when you feel like you are completely sacked, worn out and done, you still have 80-90% left in the tank, but we’ve been conditioned to never expend any reserves, but rather to operate on the excess.
      • It is true that you can't just turn off your brain, with regard to food. If you eat only junk food, you are certainly going to thwart your body's ability to communicate what it needs to communicate.

        But I would still argue that most people's weight problems, even today, are because they don't listen to their body. Stop eating when you're no longer hunger. Most people feel compelled to finish what's on their plate, even if they are no longer hungry, especially at a restaurant. How many times have you heard pe

    • Like bodies are complex or inscrutable. Mine has Opinions about everything, from atmospheric pressure to joint stress. I mean, we're all built basically the same, and have been for I don't know how long, so it beggars belief that we're still working to elucidate the facts.
  • by thesjaakspoiler ( 4782965 ) on Tuesday June 20, 2023 @06:58PM (#63619522)

    I printed out this article and put it above my desk in case my manager comes in screaming again.

  • Due to stress headaches, I regularly spend time in bed in the afternoon. That almost never includes any sleep, though. I seem to be unable to sleep during the day.

  • Anytime I take a nap, I feel hung over for the rest of the day. I have to sleep for a minimum of 4 hours to avoid this horrible feeling

    • I get that if I lie down for a nap and nap for more than about 20 minutes. For me, a 20 minute nap in a comfortable chair with my feet on the floor is refreshing, but anything more makes me groggy and weird feeling for quite a while.
    • Four hours seems to be my thing, and f*ck help anyone who wakes me up during those four hours without bringing me coffee!
  • have an easier life than those who can't.

    “It is like a natural randomised control trial”

    It was an observational study. So no, it's not.

  • Headline: "Study A says that doing B can do C for you."

    Correct Interpretation: "No, that's not what study A says, Your feeble brain makes unreasonable leaps, and uses it's shitty writing skills say that."

    Now, you might be wrong once in a while... but you'll be mostly right.

  • On the other hand, a recent study -- maybe even the same one -- indicates that LONG daytime naps are associated with cognitive decline. Really, I am not shitting you.

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