It’s Now Backed By Science; Power Naps Prevent Strokes

About two million Nigerians commute to the island from various places in Lagos state every day. Many of them who travel from suburbs such as Odongunyan, Alagbado, Alakuko, and other far-flung areas with agrarian names. They wake up as early as 4am and don’t get back home until 10pm. These commuters must be overwhelmingly represented in the 150,000 Nigerians that the former Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole says die from cardiovascular diseases every year. But nature has a solution which offices have long frowned upon – power nap (the 10 – 15 minutes snooze our body urges us to take once or twice in the afternoon).

Researchers at the University Hospital of Lausanne in Switzerland monitored 3,400 people who were aged 35 to 75, for an average of five years, looking at the association between napping frequency and average nap duration, and the risk of a heart attack or stroke. Their findings, recently published online in the British Medical Journal Heart, found that napping even just once or twice a week may lower the risk of having a heart attack or stroke. During the five years of the study, there were 155 heart attacks or strokes amongst the participants. Those who occasionally napped once or twice a week reduced their risk of having a stroke or heart attack by almost 50%.

Naveed Sattar, Professor of Metabolic Medicine at the University of Glasgow, said those who nap frequently during the week tend to be healthier overall. He added: “those who nap one to two times per week have healthier lifestyles or organised lives that allow them to have these naps, whereas those who nap nearly every day are likely to be more sick.”

You may not yet have the means to move from Odongunyan nearer to your workplace in Victoria Island but you can cut the risk of suffering a stroke or heart attack by almost 50% if you take afternoon naps just twice in a week. Human Resources departments should take note and grant staff the right to nap. Even if it’s just twice a week.