iNEWS
Daytime napping may help to preserve the mind by slowing the rate at which our brains shrink as we age, research suggests.
Previous research has shown that napping has cognitive benefits, with people who have had a short nap performing better in cognitive tests in the hours afterwards than those who did not nap.
The new study, led by researchers at UCL and the University of the Republic in Uruguay, aimed to establish if there was a causal relationship between daytime napping and brain health.
The scientists looked at 97 snippets of DNA thought to determine people’s likelihood of habitual napping. They compared measures of brain health and cognition of people who are more genetically “programmed” to nap with counterparts who did not have these genetic variants, using data from nearly 380,000 people aged 40 to 69 from the UK Biobank study. The team found that, overall, people predetermined to nap had a larger total brain volume.
The researchers estimated that the average difference in brain volume between people programmed to be habitual nappers and those who were not was equivalent to 2.6 to 6.5 years of ageing. But they did not find a difference in how well those programmed to be habitual nappers performed on three other measures of brain health and cognitive function – hippocampal volume, reaction time and visual processing.
The study, published in the journal Sleep Health, found a causal link between habitual napping and larger total brain volume – a marker of good brain health linked to a lower risk of dementia and other diseases.
Senior author Dr Victoria Garfield, from UCL, said: “Our findings suggest that, for some people, short daytime naps may be a part of the puzzle that could help preserve the health of the brain as we get older… I hope studies such as this one showing the health benefits of short naps can help to reduce any stigma that still exists around daytime napping…
