The best of nap time
We cannot always take a nap— especially at work. You will be a lucky worker if you can have a 30-minute nap at noon before or after your lunch.
If you have all these, then you’re the luckiest of contemporary workers. If this concept of napping sounds foreign to you, then you are like most of us in the present Philippine workforce. (Add to that is the right amount of nap time and when.)
Tomohide Yamada, Shojima Nobuhiro and Kadowaki Takashi of the University of Tokyo reported in April in the Journal of American College of Cardiology (Jacc) that napping for more than an hour (and excessive sleepiness at daytime) had been associated with an increased risk in diabetes mellitus type 2. Shorter naps of less than an hour had not been associated with this risk. The study involved more than 307,000 participants both in Asian and Western countries.
Short naps are also not associated with metabolic syndrome. The evidence, however, is clear with nap times of up to 40 minutes. Between 41 and 59 minutes, the risks appeared to increase.
I remember reading two years ago about the Blue Zone people, those who lived actively up to 100 years and beyond in various parts of the world. What is common among them is a regular daily nap time of up to 30 minutes, not more. The current study appeared to confirm the benefits of napping in preventing age-related diseases and a prolonged active life.
The matter of “when” appears to be associated with the metabolic level of sugar in your blood. On the average, your blood sugar starts to diminish a lot right after your lunch while your body is still digesting your food for some 30 minutes. Thus, you still have to wait some more minutes before your blood sugar level is replenished. WebMD recommends 2 to 3 p.m. as the best time for napping. That is when our work time comes into conflict.
The ever-lighthearted American former president Ronald Reagan had this to say about napping at work: “I have left orders to be awakened at any time during national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.” It is up to each working Cebuano how to take this statement. Will it be with a grain of lemon or laughing gas? Perhaps in napping there is some fun that can be found.