- Main health benefits
- How to take a good nap
- Can napping cause harm to health?
- Do you get fat after lunch?
Taking a nap after lunch is a great way to replenish energy or relax, especially when you haven't been able to sleep well at night or when you live a very hectic lifestyle.
The ideal is to take a nap 20 to 25 minutes after lunch to get some rest and increase energy for work or school because sleeping for more than 30 minutes can favor insomnia and increase tiredness, in addition to affecting health, and may even cause more serious problems such as diabetes, for example.
Main health benefits
A nap of up to 20 minutes after lunch can bring several health benefits such as:
- Increase concentration and efficiency at work; Avoid excess stress, promoting relaxation; Reduce physical and mental fatigue; Improve memory and reaction time.
Thus, taking a nap is recommended when you feel very tired or unexpected sleep during the day. In addition, when it is known that you will be awake for a long time, because you are going to work during the night, it is also advisable to take a nap to have the extra energy needed.
However, when the need to take a nap during the day is very frequent or appears more than once a day, it is recommended to consult a sleep specialist to identify if there is any health problem that needs to be treated with medication, for example.
See a list of 8 diseases that can cause tiredness and excessive sleep during the day.
How to take a good nap
In order to get all the benefits of the nap it is important to keep it short, that is, avoiding sleeping more than 20 to 30 minutes in a row. The best time to take a nap is between 2 pm and 3 pm, or right after lunch, as besides being one of the times of the day when, normally, attention levels are lower, it is also not very close to sleep, not interfering with sleep.
People who work in shifts or have their own sleep schedule should adapt their nap time to avoid interfering with sleep hours, as a nap that is too close to sleep can cause insomnia. If this is your case, check out the essential tips to improve the sleep of those who work in shifts.
Can napping cause harm to health?
Although taking a nap has several health benefits, it does not work for everyone because not everyone can sleep during the day or out of bed, and this can cause some problems such as:
- Worse of tiredness: those who cannot sleep outside their own bed can take a long time to fall asleep and this reduces the rest time. That way, many people can wake up a few minutes later without feeling the sensation of rest and feeling like sleeping more; Increased stress and frustration: those who have difficulty sleeping during the day may feel frustrated by not being able to sleep and this can increase stress levels, producing an opposite effect to what is expected; Insomnia: if the nap is taken too close to bedtime it can cause difficulty falling asleep at night; Diabetes laughter increases: according to a Japanese study, sleeping more than 40 minutes during the day increases the risk of developing diabetes by 45%.
So, ideally, each person should try taking a nap after lunch whenever they need to, and then assess how they feel after waking up and whether that nap has affected their sleep at night. If no negative effects are observed, the nap can then be used as a great way to replenish energy during the day.
Do you get fat after lunch?
There is no evidence that sleeping after a meal can make you fat. However, some people may find it more difficult to digest food while lying or lying down and in these cases, it may favor abdominal bloating. Thus, the ideal is for the person to take a nap without lying down and be careful not to eat a very large meal, and end the meal with digestive tea, for example.
