Study Shows That Too Much Napping May Lead To Stroke And High Blood Pressure

According to a recent, extensive study, those who frequently snooze have a higher risk of developing high blood pressure and having a stroke.
“This may be because, although taking a nap itself is not harmful, many people who take naps may do so because of poor sleep at night. Poor sleep at night is associated with poorer health, and naps are not enough to make up for that,” said clinical psychologist Michael Grandner in a statement.

Grandner, who oversees the Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinic at Tucson, Arizona’s Banner-University Medical Center, was not associated with the study.

Compared to study participants who never napped, those who frequently napped throughout the day had a 24 percent higher risk of having a stroke and a 12 percent higher risk of eventually developing high blood pressure.

Those who never or infrequently snooze run a 20% higher risk of having high blood pressure, according to a study released on Monday in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension. Sleep time is now one of the AHA’s eight crucial measures for optimum heart and brain health.

Even after researchers eliminated those at high risk for hypertension, such as those with type 2 diabetes, pre-existing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sleep difficulties, and night shift workers, the findings remained accurate.

“The results demonstrate that napping increases the incidence of hypertension and stroke, after adjusting or considering many variables known to be associated with risk for cardiovascular disease and stroke,” said Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

“From a clinical standpoint, I think it highlights the importance for health care providers to routinely ask patients about napping and excessive daytime sleepiness and evaluate for other contributing conditions to potentially modify the risk for cardiovascular disease,” said Zee, who was not involved in the study.

Longer naps are not better.

The UK Biobank, a significant biological database and research tool that tracked UK citizens from 2006 to 2010, provided data on 360,000 participants’ sleeping patterns.

During the course of the four-year trial, participants in the UK study routinely gave blood, urine, and saliva samples as well as answers to questions on sleeping. However, the study relied on self-reports of napping, which has a drawback due to unreliable memory, and only recorded nap frequency rather than duration.

“They didn’t define what a nap should be. If you’re going to be sleeping for an hour, two hours, for example, that’s not really a nap,” said sleep specialist Dr. Raj Dasgupta, an associate professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California.

“A refreshing power nap that’s 15 to 20 minutes around noon to 2 p.m. is 100% the way to go if you’re sleep deprived,” said Dasgupta, who was not involved in the study. “If you have chronic insomnia we don’t encourage napping because it takes away the drive to sleep at night.”

Most of the people in the study who took regular naps smoked cigarettes, drank daily, snored, had insomnia and reported being an evening person.

Many of these factors could impact a person’s quality and quantity of slumber, Dasgupta said. Poor sleep causes “excessive daytime fatigue which can result in excessive napping during the day,” he said.

“I do believe napping is a warning sign of an underlying sleep disorder in certain individuals,” he added. “Sleep disorders are linked to an increase in stress and weight regulation hormones which can lead to obesity, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes — all risk factors for heart disease.”