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After a hectic life, stress and incomplete sleep at night, taking a short nap (power nap) in the afternoon usually refreshes everyone. Medical science also believes that a few minutes of sleep during the day proves to be extremely helpful in increasing efficiency and mental focus. However, if you have a strong desire to take a nap longer than 30 minutes every day or you feel extremely tired and lethargic throughout the day even after getting 7-8 hours of adequate sleep at night, then do not take it lightly. According to Dr. Mrinal Sircar, Director of the Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine at Medanta Hospital, Noida, this excessive daytime sleepiness can be an early alarm of a major medical crisis brewing inside your body.

How long is a nap a boon for health? Understand the right timing from experts

According to sleep medicine specialist Dr. Mrinal Sircar, a short nap of only 10 to 30 minutes is considered most ideal and scientifically healthy to recharge the human body and brain. Naps of this duration calm your nervous system, enhance creativity and most importantly, it does not cause any disruption in your natural nighttime sleep cycle. But as soon as this nap starts becoming hours long, instead of being beneficial, it starts making the body sluggish and invites many serious health risks.

Silent warning for the elderly: Long and untimely naps can increase the risk of death

Citing recent global scientific research and case studies, Dr. Sircar has made a shocking revelation. He said that the habit of taking frequent, untimely and very long naps during the day, especially in older adults, is directly linked to their deteriorating health. This trend not only reduces their physical activity but also significantly increases the risk of untimely death due to non-functioning of internal organs. In medical science, excessive sleepiness during the day is not considered an independent problem, but a major symptom of some hidden (silent) disease within the body.

Due to these 5 serious diseases, human eye breaks again and again during the day.

If your body is running towards bed again and again during the day, the following neurological and chronic diseases may be responsible behind it:

• Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA): In this serious disease, there is repeated partial or complete blockage in the patient’s respiratory tract while sleeping, due to which the level of oxygen in the blood falls and sleep is disrupted repeatedly at night. As a result, patients wake up extremely tired in the morning, even after spending the night in bed.

• Chronic Insomnia (Ulcer/Insomnia): Due to the problem of not sleeping till late at night, opening the eyes frequently or waking up too early in the morning, the healing process of the body stops, due to which there is severe lethargy during the day.

• Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS): It is a complex neurological disorder in which there is a strange restlessness, tingling sensation in the legs in the evening or at night and a strong desire to move them continuously, which completely disrupts deep sleep.

• Metabolic and Chronic Diseases: Hormonal imbalance in the body like hypothyroidism, uncontrolled diabetes, heart weakness (cardiac disease) and any latent infection that has persisted in the body for a long time are also the main causes of daytime fatigue.

• Mental Health Disorders: Extreme depression and long-term chronic stress also completely drains the brain’s energy, making the person just want to sleep throughout the day.

Sleep specialist’s final advice: When is immediate clinical diagnosis needed?

According to Dr. Mrinal Sircar, if your afternoon naps have become so long and uncontrolled that they are affecting your daily work, office productivity or social life, then it is not time to adopt home remedies but immediately consult a certified sleep medicine specialist and get a ‘sleep study’ done. By identifying the root cause of the problem and getting appropriate treatment on time, you can not only improve your sleep quality but also protect your overall health from future life-threatening complications like cardiac arrest and organ failure.