Be it a student, homemaker or a working professional, everyone deals with their fair share of workload on a daily basis. So, getting mentally-exhausted at some point is obvious.
What if you don’t have enough time to let your mind heal naturally? Is there a shortcut? Indeed, there is.
Researchers say a quick afternoon nap could help people refresh their brains and enhance their mental agility alongside.
An afternoon nap, also called ‘siesta’ (in Spanish), is a short sleep that people have after having their midday meals. It is quite a tradition in the countries with warm weather like India.
Although an afternoon nap has been considered by many people as signs of laziness and low energy, a new study published in the journal ‘General Psychiatry’ suggests that a 10 to 30 minutes’ nap between 1 and 3 pm benefits people of all age groups by giving them rest that helps clear their clouded heads.
As per the study, people over 60 years of age who took afternoon naps scored significantly higher than the others in a cognitive test that was conducted during the observation period.Davina Ramkissoon, wellbeing director of Zevo Health, was quoted by Healthline as explaining that napping helps brain recover from burnout or overload of information.
The American health information-providing website also quoted Katherine Hall, a sleep coach at Somnus, that a guided sleep therapy programme, saying that napping is great for improving mood, energy and productivity and reducing anxiety and tension, both physical and mental.
However, researchers warn that a longer nap could prove unhealthy. It could point at insufficient nighttime sleep or aftereffects of long work hours.
Therefore, the bottom-line is that an afternoon nap should be kept short.Moreover, if an afternoon nap doesn’t work well for you, there are few other options that you could try to refresh your brain.
Here’s what you can do: Restructure your routine; add some physical and mental training like exercise and meditation into your daily routine; keep a journal and pen down all the stress you have, in there; Give priority to your mental health; check on toxic-relationships
