Siesta good for blood pressure - you will get no arguments here!

Researchers say that having a 45 minute catnap helps lower a person's blood pressure more quickly after a stressful event.  And with the average night's sleep now two hours shorter than it was 50 years ago, researchers claim having a siesta provides a simple way of improving cardiovascular health.  Researchers from Allegheny College in Pennsylvania, USA, conducted an experiment which saw 85 healthy students split into two groups.

One group was allotted 60 minutes each day during which they could sleep, the other did not sleep during the day.  Participants in the experiment, the findings of which are published in Springer's International Journal of Behavioural Medicine, were then asked to complete a complex mental subtraction sum designed to raise blood pressure.  Students who napped for between 45-60 minutes were found to have significantly lower blood pressure rates during the post-activity recovery phase thank those who had not slept.

A questionnaire given to participants also saw those who had a siesta reporting much less sleepiness than those who hadn't.

Study authors Ryan Brindle and Sarah Conklin PhD, said the experiment proved the "recuperative and protective" benefits of a daytime snooze.  They said: "Our findings suggest that daytime sleep may offer cardiovascular benefit by accelerating cardiovascular recovery following mental stressors.


"Further research is needed to explore the mechanism by which daytime sleep is linked with cardiovascular health and to evaluate daytime sleep as a recuperative and protective practice, especially for individuals with known cardiovascular disease risk and those with suboptimal sleep quality."

Source: Daily Telegraph