After your afternoon meal, your body simply wouldn’t work because it needs sleep very badly. It is always better to submit to such demands of your body; else your body might react adversely. Just few minutes of nap in between work hours in the afternoon will show surprising increase in your performance level. Siesta or afternoon nap is common in countries where the climate is quite hot.

Lead researcher Dr Dimitrios Trichopoulos, from the Harvard School of Public Health, said: “In countries where mortality from coronary diseases is low, siesta is quite prevalent”.

• Researchers have found that those people who take afternoon naps have 34% lower risk of dying from heart disease.
• Afternoon nap reduces the stress and helps you relax.
• But this cannot compensate for the physical activity that you need to involve yourself in.
• In countries where there is a practice of sleeping in the afternoon, people have lower levels of heart disease.
• Napping keeps in check the level of stress hormone. High level of stress hormones will cause inflammation in the body and damage blood vessels.
• Studies have shown that daytime napping also improves memory and performance.
• Taking 30-40 winks during mid-day will reduce the risk of death from heart disease.
• People who are highly stressed will tend to indulge in unhealthy activities like smoking, drinking and eating poor diet which will increase their risk of heart disease.
• The benefits of mid-day nap are more pronounced in working men.