People who frequently take naps at work or home have healthier, younger brains and are better at mental tasks. This conclusion was drawn by British scientists in the article, published in the journal Sleep Health.
Scientists have long been interested in the benefits of daytime sleep for the human body. In a recent study, it was shown that people who often sleep more than half an hour during the day are more prone to obesity. But a small daytime sleep, less than 30 minutes, reduced the risk of high blood pressure.
In a new study, scientists from University College London investigated how daytime sleep affects brain health. They identified 97 DNA regions believed to be responsible for a person’s tendency to sleep during the day, and compared their brain health and cognitive performance with those without such a genetic predisposition. To do this, they used data from the medical records of 378,932 patients aged 40-69 from the UK Biobank (British Biobank ) is a repository of biomaterial samples and medical information on 500,000 people, which began to be collected in 2006.
An analysis of the data showed that the brain volume of people who often resort to daytime sleep is, on average, 15.8 cubic centimeters greater than the brain volume of those without such a habit and genetic predisposition. And since, as is known, the human brain annually loses 0.2-0.5% in volume, this volume conditionally corresponds to 2.6-6.5 years of life.
At the same time, the habit of sleeping during the day was associated with higher rates of cognitive abilities. “This is the first study to unravel the link between daytime sleep patterns and cognitive and structural features of the brain. Our work revealed a causal relationship between daytime sleep patterns and brain volume,” explained Valentina Paz, the author of the work.
Meanwhile, the scientists did not reveal any differences in the volume of the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for memory and learning ability, in the two groups of people.
“I hope studies like this show the benefits of napping and reduce the stigma associated with napping,” said co-author Victoria Garfield.
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