N- Napping can improve your overall wellbeing
Napping Health Benefits
Uff! I got a headache, wondering what to write on the letter N. After plenty of thinking with no results I decided to take a nap over it. A little under the weather and fatigued due to physical and strenuous activities, I tweeted about my condition to vent my emotions. “I am going to take a nap”, I tweeted. To which I got an instant reply from a friend saying that I should write on Napping.
Napping is a short brief sleep which allows your body to rest during the daytime. If you are really tired during the day, go ahead and take a nap. It need not be on a bed. A nap is also termed as cat sleep, catnap, 40 winks, snooze, and even siesta.
Sharing my views of Napping
Not many of us enjoy short naps during the daytime. Some due to the bright outdoor lights. noises or are just too busy with work to take a nap. However, it was a practice in the olden days to sleep after an afternoon meal. There is a general feeling of lethargy at that time of the day and people who are not working or at home following a routine of napping for an hour or so, before an evening tea.
Understanding why we nap anytime
Some of the reasons people nap are:
- To make up on lost sleep
- Out of habit
- They nap when their kids nap in the afternoon
- To avoid feeling sleepy later
- Just for enjoyment or to pass time
- No better work to do
- They enjoy napping
- Just have a lethargic lifestyle
A short nap can do wonders to a sleepy person but napping definitely has other benefits. Here are the Napping Health Benefits
1. Recharges you like a battery
Naps are known to boost your energy levels and alertness. After a short nap a person feels energized and improves your performance. It gets the brain in rest mode for a brief time, hence after awakening the brain functions better. This helps to make quicker decisions, creative thinking and also helps solve problems. Just imagine what a short nap of 20 minutes in the afternoons can do to you? Wonders!!
2. Keeps stress away
Taking a short nap can reduce stress up to a large extent, which directly lowers the risk of heart disease. Wow, now that gives me a good reason to take a nap. And I am surely going to encourage you all to take a 20 minute snooze every afternoon. One needs to stick to the regular napping schedule, which is between 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm.
3. Boost your mood
We can all relate to the uneasiness one experiences if you had a restless, sleepless previous night. You feel listless, groggy and have a dull headache on awakening. The best thing to do is to sneak in a short nap to help solve that sleep deprived irritability. As anyone who has suffered from a sleepless night knows, it’s hard to be chirpier the next day. A short sleep is a better choice than sipping strong tea to feel better. Caffeine is not a good solution however; napping is an original way to revive your energy levels.
4. Improves heart health
Research has proven that people who take naps on a regular basis are less likely to have heart and health ailments later in life. Short snoozes make up for the lost sleep at night that can prove fatal on heart health. Power naps are considered beneficial to improve heart health and avoid similar illnesses in the future. Time to enjoy Napping Health Benefits.
5. Sorted with food cravings
Most often a tired body interprets sleep deprivation as hunger. You crave for instant energy thus reaching out for food, mostly junk food. Napping helps you to curb junk food cravings, your brain is distracted while sleeping and stops thinking about food. Just a 15 minute snooze can get rid of junk food cravings.
Sleep is not a sign of laziness or boredom, it is a necessity. Needed by our bodies just like food and water. Let’s decide to nap more and rejuvenate ourselves for a healthier physical and mental body.
Napping Health Benefits is my post for letter N for the BlogchatterA2Z Challenge 2020. Here is my post for letter M – Music Therapy.
5 Comments
DURGA PRASAD DASH
Nice to know so many benefits of napping.
Anahita Irani
Thank you Durga Prasad
Ninu Nair
Napping is certainly the best medicine
Alpana
Somehow I never feel like napping. I know it has many benefits, but from very beginning, I hardly take a nap. And now when I am a busy mom, when my little one is napping , thats the only time I can sit peacefully and finish my writing projects…