Various Effects of Napping for Adults

The density of daily activities makes naps often missed. In fact, there are various benefits of napping for health, you know. Even so, you need to know the rules for the right nap hours so that the benefits can be optimal.

Napping is often done for those of you who are sleep deprived and feel extraordinary sleepiness or fatigue during activities during the day. However, the density of activity often makes this habit often overlooked. Even though it’s only for a short time, there are various benefits of napping that can be obtained.

To get optimal benefits, you need to know the rules of the right nap time.

What are the benefits of napping?
Dense activities often make naps often missed. In fact, there are various benefits of napping that are good for health, namely:

1. Increase alertness
   Napping can make you more enthusiastic about activities
   Being active since the morning is very possible for you to feel sleepy and need time to rest. Well, the benefits of napping for approximately 20 minutes can eliminate the drowsiness and fatigue experienced.

Napping can also relieve fatigue while replenishing the body’s lost energy so you can concentrate better and be energetic.

A study published in the journal Sleep Medicine revealed that napping can reduce adenosine levels in the brain. Adenosine itself is a neurotransmitter that encourages a person to sleep easily.

2. Improve the mood (mood)
   The benefits of napping can actually improve mood. So, if you’re feeling stressed, anxious, restless, or angry, try relaxing by taking a short nap.

Taking a nap or taking a short break while closing your eyes can change your mood for the better and more energized.

3. Improve memory
   Want the brain to function optimally in receiving and remembering learned information? You can get it with a nap, you know.

A study reveals the benefits of naps are important for the brain in storing various memories. Thanks to napping, you can also remember things that were learned earlier in the day.

Naps are also good for preventing you from forgetting important things, including motor skills, sensory perception, to verbal memory.

4. Reduce stress
   If you are under pressure from work that accumulates, the benefits of napping are able to reduce stress while increasing endurance. In fact, experts believe that a 30-minute nap can make this happen.
   
5. Lowers blood pressure
   The benefits of napping for 45-60 minutes were able to lower blood pressure after experiencing psychological stress. With a nap, your body can recover from stressful situations both physically and psychologically.

According to the researchers, every hour you nap can also lower systolic blood pressure by an average of 3 mmHg. Systolic blood pressure is the pressure when the heart contracts to pump blood throughout the body.

The benefits of napping can lower blood pressure
An average nap can lower blood pressure by 5 mmHg
In fact, research in the journal Personality and Individual Differences shows that napping appears to be just as effective at lowering blood pressure levels through other lifestyle changes, such as reducing salt and alcohol consumption.

The study found that an average nap can lower blood pressure by 5 mmHg. This value is also comparable to taking low-dose blood pressure medications, which can usually lower blood pressure by 5 to 7 mmHg.

Keep in mind that a decrease in blood pressure of 2 mmHg can reduce the risk of heart attack by as much as 10%.

6. Boost immunity
   A tired body and the effects of lack of sleep can lower the immune system. As a result, you become susceptible to various kinds of diseases. It is important for you to take time to take a nap when your body is not fit. That way, the immune system can be boosted again.

The benefits of napping can help reduce levels of inflammatory cytokines in the body and norepinephrine, a chemical compound that helps control immunity

7. Increase creativity
   Naps can increase your creativity at work
   Some people might take a nap to get a good idea. Well, it turns out that this is also one of the benefits of napping, namely increasing creativity.

REM sleep, or rapid eye movement, is said to activate parts of the brain associated with imagery and dreams.

That means that REM naps can help you incorporate new ideas or answers to the questions you need. This phase usually begins 70-90 minutes after you fall asleep.

8. Improve the sleep quality of the elderly at night
   Although it sounds illogical, the benefits of napping can help elderly people have better quality sleep at night.

One study showed that sleeping for 30 minutes between 1 and 3 p.m. coupled with moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, such as walking or stretching at night, can improve sleep quality at night. Thus, physical and psychological health will also improve.

9. Good for kids
   As a child, you may often be asked to take a nap. This is not without reason because the benefits of napping for children are important for the learning process and growth and development at that age.

Children who nap regularly are easier to remember what they have learned. Given that short-term memory is limited at this age, children need more hours of sleep so that memory can stick to the brain.

Beware of the bad effects of sleeping during the day

There are many benefits of napping to be had. However, if you apply it incorrectly, it can actually have a negative impact.

For example, if you take a nap too long to enter the afternoon. Your body, which should be preparing to rest at night, is constantly awake. As a result, you find it difficult to sleep at night.

Therefore, people who experience insomnia are not advised to take a nap because it can interfere with sleep at night.

Not only that, people who experience sleep inertia are also not recommended to take a nap. This is because sleep inertia is a sleep disorder that makes a person feel dizzy and dazed after waking up from a nap.

For workers who want to take a nap, you can do it in between breaks. However, make sure there is adequate space for you to take a nap and don’t neglect work. However, if you feel tired constantly and interfere with daily activities, even make you want to continue sleeping during the day, you should consult an expert.

Source: sehatQ