If you snooze, you win - at least your health: Naps cut stress: study
National Post
Tue 13 Feb 2007
Page: A17
Section: Body & Health
Byline: Louise Daly
Dateline: CHICAGO
Source: Agence France-Presse

CHICAGO - Forget oatmeal and sweaty workouts, if it's heart disease you're worried about, the best insurance policy might be a regular afternoon nap, a study released yesterday said.
That's because a little shuteye in the middle of the day can dramatically reduce the risk of death from heart disease, presumably because of its stress busting effect, the authors of the study said.
In fact, in a long-term study of Greek men and women, the participants who took at least three 30-minute siestas every week had a 37% lower risk of death related to heart disease than those who skipped an afternoon snooze.

Among working men, the benefits of the power nap were even more striking: The men who made time for some daily downtime, either occasionally or systematically, had a 64% lower risk of death from heart disease than their more hard-charging compatriots.

The researchers were unable to assess the impact of the siesta on working women because of insufficient data, according to the paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

"We interpret our findings as indicating that among healthy adults, siesta, possibly on account of stress-releasing consequences, may reduce coronary mortality," the authors said.

The findings are culled from a six-year study of more than 23,000 Greek men and women between the ages of 20 and 86. Volunteers were enrolled in 1994 and followed for more than six years, through 1999. At the end of that period, 792 participants had died, 133 of them from heart disease.
Researchers from the University of Athens Medical School in Greece and Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Mass., hope the results of the study will settle a question that has vexed investigators for some time: namely, whether the lower rates of coronary heart-disease seen in Mediterranean and Latin American countries are related to the natives' habit of taking an afternoon siesta.

Several studies have explored the connection, but the results have been conflicting. With this study, the researchers were careful to enroll only healthy volunteers and to take account of other risk factors, such as diet and physical activity, providing for a more robust analysis.

In Spain and Mexico, the cultural institution of the daily siesta has come under attack in recent years, with critics arguing that the midday work stoppage puts businesses at a competitive disadvantage in today's global economy.

But the authors of this study suggest that what may be bad for the bottom line may be extremely good for the health of employees.

"The public health message is clear -- if you can take a midday nap, do so," said Dimitrios Trichopoulos, professor of epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health.

Coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, with the highest rates of the disease seen in developing countries, according to statistics from the World Health Organization.