There is research that states taking a short nap during the day may help to protect the brain’s health as it ages.
While previous research has suggested long naps could be an early symptom of Alzheimer’s disease, other work has revealed that a brief doze can improve people’s ability to learn. As per the article posted in The Guardian, now researchers stated they have found evidence to suggest napping may help to protect against brain shrinkage.
That is of interest, the team says, as brain shrinkage, a process that occurs with age, is accelerated in people with cognitive problems and neurodegenerative diseases, with some research suggesting this may be related to sleep problems.
“In line with these studies, we found an association between habitual daytime napping and larger total brain volume, which could suggest that napping regularly provides some protection against neurodegeneration through compensating for poor sleep,” the researchers note.
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Writing in the journal Sleep Health, researchers at UCL and the University of the Republic in Uruguay report how they drew on data from the UK Biobank study that has collated genetic, lifestyle and health information from 500,000 people aged 40 to 69 at recruitment.
The team used data from 35,080 Biobank participants to look at whether a combination of genetic variants that have previously been associated with self-reported habitual daytime napping are also linked to brain volume, cognition and other aspects of brain health.
Given that such variants are set at birth and are assumed to be randomly assigned, the approach allows researchers to probe the effect of napping on the brain by reducing the impact of lifestyle factors that can influence people’s napping habits and brain health, such as smoking or physical activity.
“It is like a natural randomised control trial,” said Dr Victoria Garfield, a co-author of the study from University College London, adding that the variants were quite common. “They’re present in around at least 1% of the population, which is actually quite a lot of people.”
Indeed, while it first appeared that participants who reported never or rarely having a daytime nap had a larger total brain volume, the team found the reverse relationship when genetic predisposition to napping was considered, suggesting the initial finding could have been down to other factors muddying the relationship between a daytime doze and brain size.
Overall, the team found an association between genetic predisposition to habitual daytime napping and larger brain volume equivalent to 2.6 to 6.5 fewer years of aging, although there was no relationship with cognitive performance such as reaction times.
