June 20, 2023 – An individual's brain progressively shrinks as they age. However, a brand new study suggests that folks who recurrently take short naps through the day can decelerate this aging process by the equivalent of two to 6 years.
The researchers wrote: “This difference is approximately equivalent to the difference in brain volume between people with normal cognitive function and mild cognitive impairment.”
Published within the magazine on Monday Sleep HealthThe study examined data from 378,932 people aged 40 to 69. The average age was 57 years. The people, all from the UK, had previously entered their health and genetic information right into a database called UK Biobank.
Starting at age 35, the brain begins to shrink at a rate of 0.2% per yr, and by age 60 the speed increases to 0.5% per yr, the authors noted. They decided to check the effect of naps on brain volume since the rate at which the brain shrinks is linked to diseases similar to Alzheimer's disease and brain volume is linked to sleep disorders similar to insomnia.
“Our findings suggest that for some people, short daytime naps may be a piece of the puzzle that could help maintain brain health as we age,” said Victoria Garfield, Ph.D., researcher in genetic epidemiology at University College London opinion.
The researchers used a posh method based on an individual's genetic profile to discover individuals who took daytime naps. As a part of their involvement in providing data to the UK Biobank, study participants had accomplished cognitive tests to evaluate their visual memory and response time. A bunch of individuals within the study also had brain images from MRIs stored within the UK Biobank, which the researchers used to research the dimensions of the people's brains.
The authors noted that previous research has shown that daytime napping has an impact on brain health in older people, similar to by increasing performance on cognitive tasks. Some studies have shown that a nap lasts for hours and even a complete day. However, this latest study failed to seek out a link between naps and folks's performance on visual memory and response time tests. The researchers wrote that they were surprised by this result and suspected that the tests conducted by the study participants can have been flawed.
“I hope that studies like this demonstrating the health benefits of short naps can help reduce the stigma that still exists around daytime napping,” Garfield said.