Daily Napping Nips Heart Trouble

Read this and go to sleep: The Boston Globe reports that researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and in Athens found that Greeks who took regular 30-minute siestas were 37 percent
less likely to die of heart disease over a six-year period than those
who never napped. The scientists tracked more than 23,000 adults. And while it’s true that scientists have long recognized that Mediterranean adults die of
heart disease at a rate lower than Americans and Northern Europeans, much of the credit for that has gone to the Mediterranean diet. This new study, published in the Archives of Internal
Medicine, concluded that napping was more likely than diet or physical
activity to lower the incidence of heart attacks and other life-ending
heart ailments. The Globe reports that researchers point out that sleep at any time of day acts like a valve to
release the stress of everyday life. Blood pressure is reduced,
heart rates slow, and the immune system shores itself up. Read more.