Fitness Plan…

February 13, 2007 /

Aerobic workout with Gilead….check

High Fiber cereal with antioxident (and yummy) fresh blueberries for breakfast….check

30 minute nap added to daily schedule….check*

Did you see the latest, that a 30 minute nap every afternoon, if you can manage it, is good for your heart?

Here is one we’ve all been waiting for: A Harvard study has found that a regular afternoon nap could reduce the risk of cardiac death by 37 percent.

First we learned that a glass of red wine is good for the heart, and now so is the midday snooze. For the wine, we have the French to thank. For the nap, we can thank the Greeks.

Dr. Dimitrios Trichopoulos, an epidemiologist with the Harvard School of Public Health, uncovered the protective effect of siestas in a detailed study of 23,681 Greek men and women whose health and habits were followed for a minimum of six years.

The benefit was most pronounced among working men who napped regularly, for at least 30 minutes a day, at least three days a week. Their risk of cardiac death was 64 percent lower than their peers who did not nap.

Even the occasional nap was beneficial. A five-minute siesta a couple of times a week offered men and women a 12 percent reduction in heart risk.

In Greece, as in Italy and Spain, it is common for businesses to close up shop in midafternoon and for society as a whole to take a collective snooze. The payoff can be renewed energy for the rest of the day and, perhaps, a healthier heart.

“Thirty-seven percent? That’s huge,” said Dr. Matthew DeVane, a Walnut Creek cardiologist and board member of the American Heart Association. “The numbers are comparable to what aspirin and statin drugs can do.”

DeVane said unhealthy habits are built into the American lifestyle. It is common for patients in his East Bay practice to get up at 5 a.m. to catch BART and come home from work at 8 p.m.

Lack of sleep is a common problem, so a nap a day sounds like a good idea.

“Unfortunately,” DeVane said, “the workplace in America is not conducive to this intervention.”

*Though the nap won’t be taken until this afternoon…at this point it would be called “going back to bed”, and would not be especially productive…

18 Comments