Chinese scientists have found that people who sleep in the afternoon perform better on tests for orientation, fluency, and working memory. RIA Novosti reports this with reference to a study published in the journal General Psychiatry.
Researchers from the Shanghai Mental Health Center and Shanghai Jiaotong University decided to uncover that afternoon nap in the elderly is a defense response that helps prevent cognitive decline, or a symptom of dementia.
The MMSE dementia test found that cognitive performance was significantly higher in those who slept regularly during the day.
As the scientists note, their study is observational, that is, it proves that two factors – in this case, daytime sleep and brain health – are connected, but does not reveal the cause of this connection.
The authors of the study believe that sleep regulates the body’s immune response, being an evolutionary response to inflammation. In addition, people with high levels of inflammation are more likely to sleep, and inflammatory chemicals play an important role in sleep disorders. At the same time, naps help prevent this inflammation.
However, at the same time, researchers believe that afternoon naps are often associated with a sedentary lifestyle and impaired circulation of leptin and ghrelin – peptide hormones that regulate energy metabolism.
Earlier, the head of the Sleep Medicine Center of the Lomonosov Moscow State University, Candidate of Medical Sciences Alexander Kalinkin warned that lack of sleep adversely affects immunity. According to him, if a person sleeps less than five hours, then his chances of catching a viral infection increase by 250 percent compared to people who sleep the necessary seven to nine hours.