Taking a nap lowers blood pressure, heart problem risk

Good news for people who like to snooze at noon: a new study has revealed that midday naps can reduce the risk for high blood pressure and certain cardiovascular diseases.

A research presented at the European Society of Cardiology in London stated that taking an hour or two everyday can help regulate blood pressure and reduce the need for more hypertensive medications.

In the study of nearly 400 elderly people, 61 years old on average and with blood pressure conditions, researchers found that those who took naps had lowered blood pressure reading at four percent and six percent lower reading when they slept at night, compared to those who did not take naps at all.

"Our study shows that not only is midday sleep associated with lower blood pressure, but longer sleeps are even more beneficial. Midday sleepers had greater dips in blood pressure while sleeping at night which is associated with better health outcomes," said Dr Manolis Kallistratos, the cardiologist who led the study, via Mirror.

"We also found that hypertensive patients who slept at noon were under fewer antihypertensive medications compared to those who didn't sleep midday."

Dr. Kallistratos added that Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, both former UK prime ministers, were in favor of midday naps. Winston even said that man was not supposed to work from morning until midnight "without that refreshment of blessed oblivion" at noontime.

"Two influential UK Prime Ministers were supporters of the midday nap. Winston Churchill said that we must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner while Margaret Thatcher didn't want to be disturbed at around 3:00 pm," he said in the report by the Daily Mail. Dr. Kallistratos added that the two were correct as their study found that napping in the middle of the day can lower blood pressure levels.

According to Dr. Kallistratos, the results of their research has also shown how important naps are and how longer ones are more beneficial. He said in a release published in Eureka Alert that those people with hypertension that snooze at noon took less antihypertensive pills compared to those who don't nap.

"We found that midday sleep is associated with lower 24 hour blood pressure, an enhanced fall of BP in night, and less damage to the arteries and the heart. The longer the midday sleep, the lower the systolic BP levels and probably fewer drugs needed to lower BP," he said via the press release.