Research finds that taking afternoon naps can make you mentally sharper

A lot has been said and done about taking naps during the day. While experts believe that taking a power nap can help you feel refreshed and add to your productivity, others suggest that afternoon naps can make you sluggish.

But here’s a benefit to dozing off in the afternoon that we bet nobody has told you about: daytime naps can make you more agile mentally. And we’re not saying this—a study published in the online journal General Psychiatry is.

According to the research, afternoon napping seems to be associated with better locational awareness, verbal fluency, and working memory.

As people age, their sleep patterns change, with afternoon naps becoming more frequent. But research published to date hasn’t reached any consensus on whether afternoon naps might help to stave off cognitive decline and dementia in older people or whether they might be a symptom of dementia.

Here’s how this research on afternoon napping was conducted

The researchers studied 2214 ostensibly healthy people aged at least 60 and resident in several large cities around China, including Beijing, Shanghai, and Xian.

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In all, 1534 took a regular afternoon nap, while 680 didn’t. All participants underwent a series of health checks and cognitive assessments, including the Mini Mental State Exam (MMSE) to check for dementia.

The average length of nighttime sleep was around 6.5 hours in both groups.
Afternoon naps were defined as periods of at least five consecutive minutes of sleep, but no more than two hours, and taken after lunch. Participants were asked how often they napped during the week—this ranged from once a week to every day.

The participants were then screened for dementia

The dementia screening tests included 30 items that measured several aspects of cognitive ability, and higher function, including visuo-spatial skills, working memory, attention span, problem-solving, locational awareness and verbal fluency.

Also read: Study says your negative thoughts can increase your risk of dementia

The MMSE cognitive performance scores were significantly higher among the nappers than they were among those who didn’t nap. And there were significant differences in locational awareness, verbal fluency, and memory.

This is an observational study, and so can’t establish the cause. And there was no information on the duration or timing of the naps taken, which may be important.
But there are some possible explanations for the observations found, say the researchers.

What’s the link between afternoon naps and better cognition?

One theory is that inflammation is a mediator between mid-day naps and poor health outcomes. Inflammatory chemicals have an important role in sleep disorders, note the researchers.

Sleep regulates the body’s immune response and napping is thought to be an evolved response to inflammation; people with higher levels of inflammation also nap more often, explain the researchers.