Showing posts with label napping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label napping. Show all posts
Friday, May 8, 2026
What Your Naps Might Be Saying About Your Health as You Age by mindbodygreen
Friday, April 24, 2026
Objectively Measured Daytime Napping Patterns and All-Cause Mortality in Older Adults
It would seen to be better to address why the napping is occurring, NO sleep protocol so maybe not enough rest is achieved the night before. It would help if your doctor actually critically thinks about your napping. Maybe you need coffee napping.
- Coffee napping August 2014
Objectively Measured Daytime Napping Patterns and All-Cause Mortality in Older Adults
Key Points
Question Are objectively measured daytime nap characteristics, including duration, frequency, variability, and timing, associated with all-cause mortality among community-dwelling older adults? Findings In this prospective cohort study of 1338 adults aged 56 years or older, longer and more frequent daytime napping, as well as morning napping, were associated with higher all-cause mortality. Variability in nap duration was not associated with mortality.Meaning The findings suggest longer and more frequent, particularly morning, napping may be a behavioral marker of increased mortality risk in late life, underscoring the potential clinical value of incorporating wearable device–based nap assessments into routine health monitoring.
Abstract
Importance Daytime napping is common among older adults, but evidence linking objective daytime nap patterns to mortality is limited, as prior studies relied largely on self-report. Some daytime nap characteristics, such as timing and variability of nap duration across days, are also understudied.
Objective To test whether actigraphy-measured daytime nap duration, frequency, variability, and timing are associated with all-cause mortality.
Design, Setting, and Participants This prospective cohort study used data from the population-based Rush Memory and Aging Project, in which the analytic baseline was initiated in August 2005. Participants in this current study were community-dwelling adults aged 56 years or older in northern Illinois, with up to 19 years of follow-up. Data for this study were gathered until April 2025.
Main Outcome and Measures Daytime napping, defined as sleeping between 9 am and 7 pm and assessed by up to 14 days of actigraphy data. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to estimate associations between baseline daytime nap characteristics (duration, frequency, variability in duration across days, and timing) and subsequent all-cause mortality.
Results Among 1338 participants over a mean (SD) follow-up of 8.30 (4.78) years (mean [SD] participant age, 81.40 [7.39] years; 1018 [76.0%] female), 926 (69.2%) died at a mean (SD) of 7.54 (4.52) years (range, 0.08-19.08 years) after analytic baseline. Participants wore the actigraphy device for a mean (SD) of 9.58 (1.22) days. After adjusting for all covariates, longer daytime nap duration (adjusted hazard ratio [AHR] per 1-hour increase, 1.13; 95% CI, 1.04-1.23; P = .005) and higher nap frequency (AHR per additional daily nap, 1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.13; P = .003) at baseline were associated with increased mortality. Morning nappers had higher mortality risk compared with early afternoon nappers (AHR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.03-1.64; P = .03). Variability in daytime nap duration was not associated with mortality after covariate adjustment (AHR per 1-hour increase, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.89-1.14; P = .93).
Conclusions and Relevance In this prospective cohort study of community-dwelling older adults, longer and more frequent daytime napping, especially in the morning, were associated with higher all-cause mortality. The findings suggest incorporating wearable device–based daytime nap assessments into clinical and public health practices may provide novel opportunities for early risk identification of health conditions.
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Daytime Naps May Increase Risk for Stroke
Correlation! Solve the causation problem; NAPS ARE NOT THE PROBLEM! What is causing the naps?
Daytime Naps May Increase Risk for Stroke
Stroke risk was highest in individuals who took unplanned naps longer than 60 minutes and lowest in those who took planned short naps, indicating that both duration and intention modify vascular risk.
Longer daytime naps are associated with a progressively higher risk for stroke, according to findings published in Sleep Medicine Reviews.
Researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the relationship between daytime napping and stroke risk. The analysis included 13 quantitative studies, encompassing 15,855 individuals with stroke and 595,520 control individuals. An additional 7 studies were utilized for qualitative review.
Across studies, napping duration was associated with increasing stroke risk. Compared with no napping, naps lasting 1 to 30 minutes were associated with a modestly higher risk for stroke (odds ratio [OR], 1.27; 95% CI, 0.98-1.64), while naps longer than 90 minutes showed the strongest association (OR, 1.79; 95% CI, 1.37-2.35).
When grouped more broadly, naps lasting 60 minutes or less were associated with an OR of 1.27 (95% CI, 1.06-1.51), whereas naps exceeding 60 minutes were linked to a substantially higher risk (OR, 1.86; 95% CI, 1.53-2.27), indicating a progressively increasing association with longer nap duration.
The extensive amount of clinical material collected suggests that naps, especially those longer than 60 or 90 min, are risk factors for stroke.
Nap intention also appeared to modify risk. Planned naps lasting 60 minutes or less were associated with a lower risk for stroke (OR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.70-0.96). In contrast, unplanned naps of similar duration were linked to increased risk (OR, 1.37; 95% CI, 1.10-1.70). Both planned and unplanned naps lasting longer than 60 minutes were associated with elevated risk, with the strongest association observed for unplanned long naps (OR, 2.88; 95% CI, 2.05-4.04), compared with planned long naps (OR, 1.78; 95% CI, 1.14-2.26).
Daytime napping was also associated with increased risk across stroke subtypes. The association was strongest for ischemic stroke (OR, 1.48; 95% CI, 1.05-2.09), followed by hemorrhagic stroke (OR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.09-1.94), and subarachnoid hemorrhage (OR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.08–1.92).
Studies that classified napping as present vs absent also showed higher odds of total stroke among individuals who napped (OR, 1.44; 95% CI, 1.27-1.67).
Although differences in study design prevented pooled meta-analysis of nap frequency, several large prospective studies suggested that napping more than twice per week was associated with increased stroke risk, with particularly strong associations among individuals who napped 6 to 7 times per week.
Study limitations included substantial heterogeneity across studies, reliance on self-reported nap characteristics, inconsistent adjustment for confounding variables, and limited availability of detailed sleep-quality measures.
“The extensive amount of clinical material collected suggests that naps, especially those longer than 60 or 90 min, are risk factors for stroke. However, the cause of napping warrants further research and currently appears to be related to night sleep disturbances,” the study authors concluded.
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
11 Signs You Might Be Headed For a Heart Attack
Stroke probably also falls into this.
11 Signs You Might Be Headed For a Heart Attack
Tend to morph into the Incredible Hulk when you’re upset? Those fiery emotions may increase your risk for a heart attack, according to research published in 2015 in the European Heart Journal.
Researchers at the University of Australia questioned 313 patients who had suspected heart attacks about their anger levels before the onset of symptoms. They found that patients were 8.5 times more likely to have a heart attack in the two hours following an intense outburst of anger, defined as “very angry, body tense, clenching fists or teeth” compared with other times when they were less angry.
The findings suggest that if you have an episode of intense anger, it could increase your risk of heart attack in the subsequent hours. Here are the 9 best ways to control your anger and avoid getting to that point.
(I'm incredibly calm all the time, don't get flustered about anything.)
Yes, that includes working on your computer. A study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology in 2011 found that people who watch TV or work on a computer for four or more hours a day have more than double the risk of a cardiovascular disease event, like a heart attack, than those who spend less than two hours looking at a screen.
Long periods of sitting deplete the body’s supply of lipoprotein lipase, an enzyme that breaks down fat and prevents clogged arteries. If you spend most of your day plopped behind a desk, take a brief walk after every 20 minutes or try a standing desk. You can burn 30 percent more calories when you stand than when you sit. (Don't miss these 15 doctor-approved tips to prevent heart disease.)
(Yeah, doing this blog and my brain games is about 4-5 hours per day; not worried, my outdoor walking keeps me moving. And pee and water/coffee breaks mean doing steps in my 4 level condo, so moving quite regularly.)
Many adults struggle to get the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep each night, but consistently missing that mark could be bad for your heart. A study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment & Health found that Japanese men who got less than six hours of sleep were five times more likely to have a heart attack than men who slept seven or eight hours a night. Don't miss what causes heart disease and how you can prevent it.
(Usually about 7 hours a night, starting at 2-3am. It's great being retired, getting up late is not a problem.
Reading in these 11 posts seems to consider napping very beneficial until you get longer than an hour.
napping (11 posts to August 2014)
Smog is just as bad for your heart as it is for your lungs. For a 2016 study published in Environment International, researchers used hourly air pollution measurements in South Boston to determine how exposure to particulate matter (small combustion particles that come from fuel burning and vehicle emissions) affected patients in this area who had heart attacks.
They found that exposure to high concentrations of air pollution increased the likelihood of a heart attack by 48 percent in the two hours before patients first experienced heart attack symptoms. The risk went up to 69 percent when people were exposed to high levels of air pollution for 24 hours before the onset of symptoms. (Here are 9 more things you should know about heart attacks before you have one.)
(Nope.)
Several studies have found that the risk of heart attack goes up the first few days after daylight saving time starts, reports the American Heart Association. One study by Swedish researchers found about a 6.7 percent greater risk of a heart attack in the first three days after we spring forward. U.S. researchers tracked hospital records and found a 24 percent increase in heart attacks on the Monday after the spring time change. The risk slowly dropped the rest of the week.
Since the total heart attack counts for those weeks were not drastically different from other weeks, researchers determined that the time changes didn’t necessarily make the heart attacks happen, but rather made them likely to occur sooner than they otherwise would have. This is probably due to disrupted sleep-wake cycles and increased stress at the start of a new week of work.
(Being retired means this really has no effect on me at all.)
Divorce can cause literal heartache and be a heart attack risk factor. Researchers at the Duke University School of Medicine conducted an 18-year-study of nearly 16,000 men and women between the ages of 45 and 80 who had been married at least once. Every two years, researchers assessed the participants’ marital status and overall health.
Divorced women were 25 percent more likely to have a heart attack than those who stayed married. Women who had two or more divorces were 77 percent more likely to have a heart attack.
As for the men, the risk of heart attack stayed the same regardless of whether they were married or divorced—at first. But if they divorced at least twice, their heart attack risk increased by 30 percent.
(Very happily divorced!
I'm sure my divorce vastly improved my chances of not getting dementia. My social connections have exploded since then. My epigenetic aging was vastly improved by getting divorced.
My story; I would still be leading a life of quiet desperation.
Why my stroke was the best thing to ever happen to me)
Studies show that both extreme cold and extreme heat can put people at risk for heart attacks. Using data from cardiac patients in the Worcester Heart Attack Study, a study in the journal Epidemiology found that exposure to temperatures lower than 17 degrees F in the two days prior to a heart attack increased patients’ risk by 36 percent.
On the other end of the spectrum, British researchers found that once the temperature reaches 68 degrees F, each increase of 1.8 degree F increased the risk of heart attack by 2 percent over the next one to six hours. On the first day of a hot spell, that risk jumps up to 6.5 percent per 1.8 degree F increase.
(Central Michigan; while summers can get in the 90's, winters have definitely wimped out. In the 13 years living here, maybe 1 year the ground actually froze. I barely ever wear my heaviest winter coat. And with a condo, no snow shoveling or lawn work.)
Having a hurricane or earthquake devastate your hometown not only affects you mentally and emotionally but physically as well. Researchers at Tulane Medical Center in New Orleans studied the number of patients that were admitted with heart-related problems in the years after Hurricane Katrina hit the area in 2005.
They found that the number of people admitted to the hospital for heart attacks increased three-fold in the 10 years after Katrina, compared to the number of admissions in 2003 and 2004. Patients were also more likely to have heart attack risk factors after the hurricane, including high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and diabetes.
(Nope, never got close to being in a tornado.)
The four or more years you spend in college may be good for more than a diploma. A study published in the International Journal for Equity in Health analyzed data from more than 267,000 Australian men and women.
The results showed that people with no certifications or degrees were more than twice at risk of a heart attack compared to those with a university degree or higher. Bottom line: The more time you spend in school, the lower your risk for a heart attack.
(Bachelor degrees in Data Processing and Accounting. Got within two courses of a master's in finance.)
The American College of Cardiology has long recommended that those with heart disease get annual flu shots, but research shows just how important that shot is.
A 2018 study in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at 364 people hospitalized for heart attacks and found that they were six times more likely to have a heart attack in the week after being infected with the flu.
If you're feeling under the weather, look out for these 7 silent signs you're having a heart attack.
(Have regularly gotten flu shots for the last 20 years. The last time I remember getting the flu was probably 35 years ago.)
Or maybe it was your father, or grandparent, or siblings. No matter which relative it was, the American Heart Association says that heart disease and risk factors for heart disease are strongly linked to family history.
There are at least 67 sites in the DNA sequence, or variants, that can increase your risk of a heart attack. Each of these variants raises your risk of cardiovascular disease by about 10 percent. But if you have more variants, your risk adds up.
The good news is, having a family history of heart attacks doesn't guarantee you will have one. Actively maintaining a healthy lifestyle can lower your overall risk. (Start with these 30 proven ways to reduce your risk of heart disease.)
(One grandparent died of a heart attack, one died of a stroke. Dad died of Parkinsons and dementia at 91. Mom still living alone at 96. I'm going to easily break 100 if I'm not too wild in my extracurricular activities. I had my stroke at age 50, so got that out of the way early.)
Thursday, January 9, 2025
New study hints at how naps improve performance
There was never any time in the hospital to nap properly, I was so fatigued I would fall asleep in the 10 minutes between therapy sessions. My doctor did nothing for my fatigue, never even discussed it.
New study hints at how naps improve performance
For more than a century, we've known that sleep boosts cognitive performance. The big question is: how, exactly?
One popular idea is that toxins which accumulate in the brain while we're awake are cleared away during a good night's sleep. But this theory, known as the glymphatic system hypothesis, can't explain how people can perform better on a taxing test after just a brief nap.
New research, led by Natasha Kharas at Weill Cornell Medical School, provides some compelling insights on why this happens, with data suggesting that it might even be possible to use brain stimulation techniques to mimic the beneficial effects of sleep while awake.
Kharas and her colleagues conducted their experiments on macaques. The team first trained five of the monkeys on a visual task in which they had to decide whether two objects that were briefly flashed on a screen were identical or not. These images were rotated at a variety of angles, by up to 90 degrees, making the task reasonably demanding.
After performing a set of these tasks, the animals either napped for half an hour (in non-REM Stage 1 and Stage 2 sleep) or rested while awake. During this time, the team used electrodes to record the activity of more than 4,000 neurons in three areas of their cortex. Two of these were visual areas (V1 and V4). The third was the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a region involved in decision-making that is active during the visual task. After the thirty-minute period, the monkeys were given exactly the same set of tasks to do again.
The team found that only those that had napped did better on these tasks the second time around. Neuronal recordings revealed some hints as to why. During a nap, there was an increase in low frequency delta wave activity and a decrease in the gamma band (which is associated with wakefulness). The team also observed that neurons in the different regions fired in sync. After the napping animals woke up, however, neuronal activity became more out-of-sync than it had been beforehand. None of these changes were seen when a monkey had rested without snoozing.
The team think that the increase in out-of-sync firing after the napping animals woke up allowed neurons to fire more independently, which then boosted their accuracy in processing information, explaining their post-nap improvement on the visual tasks.
As the team notes, these findings suggest that increased delta wave activity during non-REM sleep leads to the beneficial 'desynchronisation effect' on cognitive performance after waking. But in the next stage of their study, they firmed up the evidence for this.
This time, the macaques always stayed awake between the two blocks of visual tasks. But in some trials, during the in-between rest phase, the team applied an electric current to their brains. This current mimicked the delta frequency observed during the non-REM sleep.
Their results showed that this artificial stimulation caused the same desynchronisation effect that they'd seen in the earlier study — and an improvement on the visual task. "This finding is significant because it suggests that some of the restorative and performance-enhancing effects of sleep might be achieved without the need for actual sleep," commented senior author Valentin Dragoi in a statement released at the time.
Further studies are now needed to explore whether stimulating delta wave activity in people could have the same effect, and to explore what happens to performance if the stimulation lasts for longer than half an hour. While this new work does not mean that the glymphatic system hypothesis is wrong — or, of course, that REM sleep, which brings its own benefits, can be ignored — it could potentially open a new route to helping those who struggle to get enough sleep. In theory, this could mean astronauts on an extended mission, special forces operatives — or just anyone who suffers from insomnia.
Read the paper in full:
Kharas,
N., Chelaru, M. I., Eagleman, S., Parajuli, A., & Dragoi, V.
(2024). NREM sleep improves behavioral performance by desynchronizing
cortical circuits. Science, 386(6724), 892–897. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adr3339
Monday, July 22, 2024
Daily Naps and Brain Training Reduce Dementia Risk
Didn't seem to be allowed while in the hospital. With my vast fatigue I would sleep for the 10 minutes between therapy sessions.
This research has the following notes;
Daytime naps may be good for our brains, study says
On average, the difference in brain volume between nappers and non-nappers was equivalent to 2.5 to 6.5 years of aging, researchers said.(So enough to recover the lost 5 cognitive years from your stroke)
“Our findings suggest that, for some people, short daytime naps may be a part of the puzzle that could help preserve the health of the brain as we get older,” said senior author Victoria Garfield, a senior research fellow at UCL, in a statement.
And then there is this fucking stupidity:
Frequent daytime naps potential causal risk factor for hypertension, ischemic stroke
And you're that
stupid that you think napping is the problem? Rather than figuring the
real cause of what is causing the napping. I'd have you all fired for
incompetence, not understanding cause and effect. My god, the stupidity out there is excessive.
And more stupidity:
So set your timer to 59 minutes, although I don't think napping causes Alzheimers.
Daily napping among older adults linked to a 40% higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease
The latest here:
Daily Naps and Brain Training Reduce Dementia Risk
Summary: Exercising our brains with daily habits like naps and memory workouts, instead of relying on smartphones, can reduce the risk of age-related dementia. A new study highlights the superiority of human intelligence over AI.
The study emphasizes nurturing our brain’s potential for healthy aging. It also offers practical tips for boosting brain power and maintaining real intelligence.
Key Facts:
- Daily brain exercises and naps can reduce the risk of dementia.
- Elmasry’s book emphasizes the unmatched capabilities of human intelligence.
- Practical tips include associative memory-building and healthy lifestyle choices.
Source: Taylor and Francis Group
People can reduce their risk of age-related dementia by exercising their brains properly instead of Googling, according to a leading Canadian academic.
Professor Mohamed I. Elmasry says simple daily habits such as afternoon naps, memory ‘workouts’ and not reaching for a smartphone can increase the odds of healthy aging.
His new book, iMind: Artificial and Real Intelligence (with foreword by Canadian cell biologist Dr. Aileen Burford-Mason), says the focus has shifted too far away from RI (natural, or real) intelligence in favor of AI (machine, or artificial) intelligence. Elmasry instead calls us to nurture our human mind which, like smartphones, has ‘hardware’, ‘software’ and ‘apps’ but is many times more powerful – and will last much longer with the right care.
Professor Elmasry, an internationally recognized expert in microchip design and AI, was inspired to write the book after the death of his brother-in-law from Alzheimer’s and others very close to him, including his mother, from other forms of dementia.
Although he says that smart devices are ‘getting smarter all the time’, he argues in iMind that none comes close to ‘duplicating the capacity, storage, longevity, energy efficiency, or self-healing capabilities of the original human brain-mind’.
He writes that: “The useful life expectancy for current smartphones is around 10 years, while a healthy brain-mind inside a healthy human body can live for 100 years or longer.
“Your brain-mind is the highest-value asset you have, or will ever have. Increase its potential and longevity by caring for it early in life, keeping it and your body healthy so it can continue to develop.
“Humans can intentionally develop and test their memories by playing ‘brain games,’ or performing daily brain exercises. You can’t exercise your smartphone’s memory to make it last longer or encourage it to perform at a higher level.”
In iMind: Artificial and Real Intelligence Professor Elmasry shares an anecdote about his grandchildren having to use the search engine on their smartphones to name Cuba’s capital—they had just spent a week in the country with their parents.
The story illustrates how young people have come to rely on AI smartphone apps instead of using their real intelligence (RI), he says, adding: “A healthy memory goes hand-in-hand with real intelligence. Our memory simply can’t reach its full potential without RI.”
Published by Routledge, iMind: Artificial and Real Intelligence includes extensive background on the history of microchip design, machine learning and AI and their role in smartphones and other technology.
The book also explains how both AI and human intelligence really work, and how brain function links the mind and memory. It compares the human mind and brain function with that of smartphones, ChatGPT and other AI-based systems.
Drawing on comprehensive existing research, iMind aims to narrow the knowledge gap between real and artificial intelligence, to address the current controversy around AI, and to inspire researchers to find new treatments for Alzheimer’s, other neurodegenerative conditions and cancer.
It argues that current or even planned AI cannot match the capabilities of the human brain-mind for speed, accuracy, storage capacity and other functions. Healthy aging, Professor Elmasry notes, is as important as climate change but doesn’t attract a fraction of the publicity.
He calls for policymakers to adopt a series of key reforms to promote healthy aging. Among such changes, he suggests that bingo halls could transition from their sedentary entertainment function to become active and stimulating learning centers.
As well as napping to refresh our memories and other brain and body functions, he also outlines a series of practical tips to boost brain power and enhance our RI (Real Intelligence).
These include building up ‘associative’ memory – the brain’s ‘dictionary of meaning’ where it attaches new information to what it already knows. Try reading a book aloud, using all of your senses instead of going on autopilot and turning daily encounters into fully-lived experiences.
Other techniques include integrating a day for true rest into the week, reviewing your lifestyle as early as your 20s or 30s, adopting a healthy diet, and eliminating or radically moderating alcohol consumption to reduce the risk of dementia.
About this dementia and aging research news
Author: Becky Parker-Ellis
Source: Taylor and Francis Group
Contact: Becky Parker-Ellis – Taylor and Francis Group
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: “iMind: Artificial and Real Intelligence 1st Edition” by Mohamed I. Elmasry is available for purchase online.
Saturday, September 23, 2023
Daytime naps may be good for our brains, study says
Didn't seem to be allowed while in the hospital. With my vast fatigue I would sleep for the 10 minutes between therapy sessions. So maybe this could recover some of your 5 lost years of brain cognition due to your stroke?
Assuming that your doctor takes responsibility for recovering those 5 years. Or is your doctor incompetent is that part of stroke recovery also?
Daytime naps may be good for our brains, study says
Taking daytime naps may help maintain brain health as we age, according to a new study. However, prior research has shown that excess napping can also be harmful.
Habitual napping was linked with larger total brain volume, which is associated with a lower risk of dementia and other diseases, according to researchers from University College London (UCL) and the University of the Republic of Uruguay.
On average, the difference in brain volume between nappers and non-nappers was equivalent to 2.5 to 6.5 years of aging, researchers said.
“Our findings suggest that, for some people, short daytime naps may be a part of the puzzle that could help preserve the health of the brain as we get older,” said senior author Victoria Garfield, a senior research fellow at UCL, in a statement.
While the study was “well-conducted,” limitations include the fact that napping habits were self-reported, said Tara Spires-Jones, president of the British Neuroscience Association and deputy director of the Centre for Discovery Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the study.
The results show “a small but significant increase in brain volume in people who have a genetic signature associated with taking daytime naps,” she told the Science Media Centre.
“Even with those limitations, this study is interesting because it adds to the data indicating that sleep is important for brain health,” she said.
In response, lead study author Valentina Paz, a researcher at the University of the Republic of Uruguay and UCL, told CNN that she agreed “the work has some limitations,” but they’re “confident” in the method used in the study.
Statistical approach
In the study, published Monday in the journal Sleep Health, researchers used a technique called Mendelian randomization to analyze DNA samples and brain scans from 35,080 people aged 40 to 69 involved in the UK Biobank study, a large biomedical database and research resource that followed UK residents from 2006 to 2010.
Mendelian randomization is a statistical approach that uses genetics to provide information about the relationship between an exposure and outcome.
Researchers looked at sections of genetic code linked to people’s likelihood of regular napping and then compared brain health and cognition results between those with the napping genes and those without.
“By looking at genes set at birth, Mendelian randomisation avoids confounding factors occurring throughout life that may influence associations between napping and health outcomes,” said lead author Paz in the statement.
However, such a technique can only show an association between nap and brain health, not cause and effect. In addition, researchers did not have information on nap duration, which can impact whether sleep is helpful or harmful.
Paz told CNN that previous findings suggest that “taking a short nap (5 to 15 minutes) in the early afternoon may benefit those needing it.”
Napping can be harmful too
Meanwhile, previous research has shown that frequent napping or regularly napping for extended periods during the day may be a sign of early dementia in older adults.
Elderly adults who napped at least once a day or more than an hour a day were 40% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than those who did not nap daily or napped less than an hour a day, according to a study published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association, in March 2022.
And in July 2022, a study found that people who often nap have a greater chance of developing high blood pressure and having a stroke.
Study participants who typically napped during the day were 12% more likely to develop high blood pressure over time and were 24% more likely to have a stroke compared with people who never napped.
“This may be because, although taking a nap itself is not harmful, many people who take naps may do so because of poor sleep at night. Poor sleep at night is associated with poorer health, and naps are not enough to make up for that,” said clinical psychologist Michael Grandner in a statement at the time. Grandner directs the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic at the Banner-University Medical Center in Tucson, Arizona, and was not involved in the study.
Excessive napping can be a sign of an underlying sleep disorder, sleep specialist Dr. Raj Dasgupta, an associate professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, told CNN in a prior interview.
“Sleep disorders are linked to an increase in stress and weight regulation hormones which can lead to obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes – all risk factors for heart disease,” he said. “I do believe napping is a warning sign of an underlying sleep disorder in certain individuals.”
Friday, August 25, 2023
Doing This Everyday Can Help Slow Down Brain Shrinking As You Get Older
Does your doctor have enough functioning brain cells to see that this might just recover your lost 5 cognitive years from your stroke or is your doctor using vitamins to recover your lost years?Vitamins can make your brain 3 years younger, study says
OR, does your doctor incompetently have nothing for recovering your lost cognition?
Doing This Everyday Can Help Slow Down Brain Shrinking As You Get Older
Our brain shrinks with age, but a larger brain volume means better brain health. Ryan Seacrest shared the hack on-air today that can help slow it down and reduce the risk of neurological diseases that occur naturally as you get older. People who do this everyday can help slow down brain shrinking... and you may love doing it, but not ever have time to do so:Try doing this every day to keep your brain volume up there:
Photo: Getty© Provided by On Air with Ryan Seacrest
TAKE A NAP
People who take naps regularly have brains that appear 7 years younger than their biological age.
Who else is scheduling a nap into their day now?!
Watch the video above for more!
Friday, June 23, 2023
Regular Napping Linked to Greater Brain Volume
Does your doctor have enough functioning brain cells to see that this might just recover your lost 5 cognitive years from your stroke or is your doctor using vitamins to recover your lost years?Vitamins can make your brain 3 years younger, study says
OR, does your doctor incompetently have nothing for recovering your lost cognition?
Regular Napping Linked to Greater Brain Volume
Daily napping may help preserve brain health, new research suggests.
Investigators at University College London, United Kingdom, and the University of the Republic of Uruguay, Montevideo, found individuals genetically predisposed to regular napping had larger total brain volume, a surrogate of better cognitive health.
Valentina Paz, MSc
"Our results suggest that napping may improve brain health," first author Valentina Paz, MSc, a PhD candidate at the University of the Republic of Uruguay in Montevideo told Medscape Medical News. "Specifically, our work revealed a 15.8 cubic cm increase in total brain volume with more frequent daytime napping," she said.
The findings were published online June 19 in Sleep Health.
Higher Brain Volume
Previous studies examining the potential link between napping and cognition in older adults have yielded conflicting results.
To clarify this association Paz and colleagues used Mendelian randomization to study DNA samples, cognitive outcomes, and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data in participants from the ongoing UK Biobank Study.
Starting with data from 378,932 study participants (mean age 57), investigators compared measures of brain health and cognition of those who are more genetically programmed to nap with people who did not have these genetic variations.
More specifically, the investigators examined 97 sections of genetic code previously linked to the likelihood of regular napping and correlated these results with fMRI and cognitive outcomes between those genetically predisposed to take regular naps and those who weren't.
Study outcomes included total brain volume, hippocampal volume, reaction time, and visual memory.
The final study sample included 35,080 with neuroimaging, cognitive assessment, and genotype data.
The researchers estimated that the average difference in brain volume between individuals genetically programmed to be habitual nappers and those who were not was equivalent to 15.8 cubic cm, or 2.6-6.5 years of aging.
The final study sample included 35,080 with neuroimaging, cognitive assessment, and genotype data.
The researchers estimated that the average difference in brain volume between individuals genetically programmed to be habitual nappers and those who were not was equivalent to 15.8 cubic cm, or 2.6-6.5 years of aging.
However, there was no difference in the other three outcomes — hippocampal volume, reaction time, and visual processing — between the two study groups.
Since investigators did not have information on the length of time participants napped, Paz suggested that "taking a short nap in the early afternoon may help cognition in those needing it."
However, she added, the study's findings need to be replicated before any firm conclusions can be made.
"More work is needed to examine the associations between napping and cognition, and the replication of these findings using other datasets and methods," she said.
The investigators note that the study's findings augment the knowledge of the "impact of habitual daytime napping on brain health which is essential to understanding cognitive impairment in the aging population. The lack of evidence for an association between napping and hippocampal volume and cognitive outcomes (eg, alertness) may be affected by habitual daytime napping and should be studied in the future."
Strengths, Limitations
Commenting on the findings for Medscape Medical News, Tara Spires-Jones, PhD, president of the British Neuroscience Association and group leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute, said, "the study shows a small but significant increase in brain volume in people who have a genetic signature associated with taking daytime naps."
Tara Spires-Jones, PhD
Spires-Jones, who was not involved in the research, noted that while the study is well-conducted, it has limitations. Because Mendelian randomization uses a genetic signature, she noted, outcomes depend on the accuracy of the signature.
"The napping habits of UK Biobank participants were self-reported, which might not be entirely accurate, and the 'napping' signature overlapped substantially with the signature for cognitive outcomes in the study, which makes the causal link weaker," she said.
"Even with those limitations, this study is interesting because it adds to the data indicating that sleep is important for brain health," said Spires-Jones.
The study was supported by Diabetes UK, the British Heart Foundation, and the Diabetes Research and Wellness Foundation. In Uruguay it was supported by Programa de Desarrollo de las Ciencias Básicas (PEDECIBA, MEC-UdelaR), Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación (ANII), Comisión Sectorial de Investigación Científica (CSIC, UdelaR), and Comisión Académica de Posgrado (CAP, UdelaR). In the United States it was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. There were no disclosures reported.
Sleep Health. Published online June 19, 2023. Full text.
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