In case you needed another reason to treat yourself to an afternoon nap.
March 18, 2019

Photo: Jose Luis Pelaez Inc/Getty Images

This story originally appeared on by Meghan Overdeep.

It's one more in the win column for midday naps, y'all!

The results of a new study from the American College of Cardiology found that people who indulged in midday naps not only experienced a boost in energy, they were also more likely to experience a noticeable drop in blood pressure compared with those who didn't nap.

Related: 15 Little Ways to Protect Your Heart

And that's not all. Midday sleep even appears to lower blood pressure levels at the same magnitude as other lifestyle changes like reducing salt and alcohol intake. If that's not reason enough for an afternoon snooze, we don't know what is!

Researchers in Greece studied more than 200 people with "relatively well-controlled blood pressure" who slept for on average about 50 minutes during the day. What they found is that taking a nap during the day was associated with an average 5 mm Hg drop in blood pressure, "which is on par with what would be expected from other known blood pressure-lowering interventions."

Now that doesn't mean you should start sleeping the day away. Scientists stress that more research is still needed.

"We obviously don't want to encourage people to sleep for hours on end during the day, but on the other hand, they shouldn't feel guilty if they can take a short nap, given the potential health benefits," Manolis Kallistratos, MD, cardiologist at the Asklepieion General Hospital in Voula, Greece, and one of the study's co-authors, told Science Daily.

Bring on those naps!

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