Midday nap: good for high blood pressure
Lisa Vogel studied departmental journalism with a focus on medicine and biosciences at Ansbach University and deepened her journalistic knowledge in the master's degree in multimedia information and communication. This was followed by a traineeship in the editorial team. Since September 2020 she has been writing as a freelance journalist for
More posts by Lisa Vogel All content is checked by medical journalists.If you regularly take a nap at noon, you can lower your blood pressure in the long term - and even significantly. But sleeping too much a day is also not advisable. The right dose is crucial.
After lunch comes the low: the eyes become heavy, the need for an afternoon nap grows stronger. Give in to the urge? In any case - if everyday life allows it! At least that's what a new study from Greece says. Because people who regularly take a nap at noon benefit from the break in terms of health.
An afternoon nap lowers blood pressure
Scientists around the cardiologist Dr. Leandros Poulimenos from the Greek General Clinic in Voula evaluated the health data and sleeping habits of 212 people with slightly elevated blood pressure. The mean age of the study participants was 62.5 years and the blood pressure was 130 to 77 mmHg.
In the study participants who regularly slept at noon, the scientists were able to determine a significantly lower blood pressure. The daily nap in the study group lowered the blood pressure by an average of 5 mmHg.
Lower risk of heart attack
"The afternoon nap seems to lower blood pressure in a similar way to other lifestyle changes," says cardiologist and co-author Dr. Manolis Kallistratos. Napping thus has similar effects on blood pressure as abstaining from alcohol or a low-salt diet.
If the blood pressure drops by 2 mmHg, this has positive effects: "This can reduce the risk of cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks by up to ten percent," says Kallistratos. Anyone who takes a nap in everyday life should do so without a guilty conscience.
20 minutes are enough
At least if he observes a few points: "It is important that the nap lasts no longer than 20 minutes," says Professor Göran Hajak, sleep researcher and chief physician of psychiatry and psychotherapy at the Bamberg Clinic in an interview with Spiegel-Online. After 20 minutes you would enter a deep sleep phase. The result? It is difficult to get going again and it takes a lot longer to wake up.
High blood pressure: long undetected
A nap in the afternoon could be an easy way to address problematic high blood pressure. Because there is an urgent need for action here for many: 20 to 30 million Germans are affected by high blood pressure (hypertension). Doctors speak of this from values of 140 to 90 mmHg. Values between 130 to 85 and 139 to 89 are slightly increased, but still in the normal range. People with a blood pressure of 120 to 80 mmHg do not have to worry in any way.
The problem with high blood pressure: if left untreated, it damages the blood vessels and increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases. However, high blood pressure is usually discovered late - regular blood pressure measurements are therefore important in order to detect the disease at an early stage.
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