Lovers of the siesta, this article is for you: new research shows that an afternoon nap of 30 minutes helps you sleep better at night, improving the quality of life.
Behind the apparent truism that an afternoon nap can help you live through your day and relieve physical and mental fatigue, there is a new scientific research that explains why getting an afternoon nap, without too much guilt and indeed, with great sense of responsibility for their own health, leads to improvement of both physical and mental ability.
Recently released by the American magazine of the Official Association of Endocrinology, the Journal of Endocrinology & Metabolism, the study aims to demonstrate the importance of taking a nap everyday for at least 30 minutes to improve the quality of life and sleep at night.
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After analyzing the behavior of sleep during the day and night from 11 American men between 25 and 34 years old, led to the conclusion that because of the sleepless nights, the subjects of the study showed a clear decline in hormones such as norepinephrine and proteins related to the immune system, while taking a 30 minute rest a day normalizes the levels of those components, normalizing also the biorhythm.
The US National Hear, Lung and Blood Institute also revealed the exact number of hours that each of us should sleep every day, divided by age segments, discovering that the most “needy” of sleep would have to be newborns, seems obvious, and children in pre-school age.
Finally, if as much as 40% of Americans would sleep a few hours at night, 34 of 100 Europeans suffer from insomnia, indicating that the problem is widespread.
The data is clear. In short: a regular sleep, assisted by an afternoon nap would also help prevent serious physical problems such as obesity, hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and for some, even reduced life expectancy.
So we are really justified after all… everbody in bed in the afternoon!