A lot of people get that feeling where halfway through the day they just want to sleep. So what a lot of people decide to do is take a break from everything and just take a nap. Now if you are like me you can take a quick half hour nap and be fine for the rest of the day, but many people who nap will nap for several hours. According to this article, there is a possible link between long naps and diabetes. The article talks about a study that was done with 27,000 retired Chinese men and women. They were put into four groups based on their napping habits (which ranged from zero to sixty minutes). The study adjusted for confounding factors like smoking, sleep duration at night, and physical activity. The study found that those who napped for over an hour were more likely to be at risk of having diabetes than those who napped for less than 30 minutes or didn’t nap at all. The article does discuss a possibility of reverse causation. It mentions that diabetes could cause tiredness which would in turn promote napping.
This is definitely an interesting blog. I feel another thing that should be looked at is that the study was only with Chinese people. The study could possibly showed different results with a bigger group of more diversified people. It’s hard for me to imagine that the simple act of napping could cause diabetes. I feel that the susceptibility of getting diabetes through genetics is probably a better cause for the extended naps. But with all of that being said I would really be interested in more studies on this correlation.
Doctors should definitely do more studies on this because I have never heard that long naps can cause some people to have diabetes. I am someone that takes naps on days when I feel like I can’t function, but they are usually only for 30 minutes tops. My mom has always told me that “power-nap,” naps that last 10-20 minutes can do good things for your body. In this article- http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/the-secret-and-surprising-power-of-naps, it says napping for less than 20 minutes can improve your alertness and give you a better energy boost.
This blog is particularly interesting because I’ve never heard of there being a link between diabetes and napping! What an interesting find! In my mind, the only dilemma with napping has been deciding how long of a nap is appropriate or how to wake up not feeling even more tired! This article has 7 pretty nifty tips on how to nap “effectively”. Check it out! I know I’ll definitely be trying out some of them out! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/28/napping-tips-expert-strat_n_3320571.html
Your article is very interesting, but I would add some more studies that were done. For me when I nap I usually wake up more tired than when I was up. I try to nap as little as possible unless I truly need it. Although there are positives of napping, and this article looks into them:
http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/sleep-topics/napping