A healthy nap is beneficial for our physical health. Taking a 30-minute nap every day can reduce the incidence of coronary heart disease by 30%. Napping can lower the risk of coronary heart disease. If conditions allow, lying down for a nap is the best option. However, if lying down is not possible, many people may choose to nap on a desk, not realizing that napping at a desk can sometimes be harmful instead of helpful.
Although napping has many benefits for the body, there are also some taboos that should be avoided. It has been believed that everyone should take a nap, but in fact, not everyone needs to. As long as the body is healthy and has sufficient sleep at night, not napping in the afternoon generally does not affect physical health. However, napping is essential for those who engage in mental work, students of all levels, those who are weak or have multiple illnesses, or the elderly.
It's not advisable to nap immediately after lunch because the stomach is still full of undigested food. In this case, lying down immediately will make people feel bloated. The correct approach is to engage in light activities after lunch, such as taking a walk or massaging the abdomen, and then taking a nap. This helps with digestion and absorption of food.
The ideal nap duration is about half an hour to one hour. Sleeping too long will lead to deep sleep, and after awakening, one will feel very uncomfortable. If this happens, getting up and engaging in some activities or washing the face with cold water and drinking a glass of water will quickly alleviate the discomfort.
Choosing the right place to nap is also necessary. Napping should not be done randomly under trees, on the grass, in corridors, or on concrete floors. It is also not advisable to nap in hallways or near drafts because the body's temperature regulation function is reduced during sleep, and severe cases can cause stomach discomfort, while mild cases can result in post-nap discomfort.
Due to limitations in conditions, many people sit or lie on the edge of a desk to take a nap. Forming a habit of sitting or lying down for a nap for a long time is extremely detrimental to one's physical health. Napping on the edge of a desk compresses the chest, affecting breathing and causing numbness in the hands, which does not achieve the goal of giving the body rest and adjustment.
Napping at a desk affects blood circulation in the body. Once the body enters a state of sleep, the heart rate gradually slows down, and the blood flow speed through various tissues also slows down relatively. The amount of blood flowing into the brain is also less than usual because a greater amount of blood needs to flow into the intestines and stomach to aid digestion after lunch. If one sleeps at a desk, the brain's ischemia becomes more severe, resulting in temporary "cerebral anemia," which can cause symptoms such as dizziness, tinnitus, weak legs, and fatigue after waking up.
Napping on a desk easily compresses the eyeballs, causing redness and increased blood pressure in the eyes, and even causing corneal deformation and changes in eye curvature. This is especially harmful to people with severe myopia and can seriously damage their vision.
When napping at a desk, the upper body needs to be propped up on the desk, increasing the curvature of the body, compressing the feet, increasing the burden on the chest, affecting breathing, and causing difficulty in breathing. When napping on a desk, it always feels difficult to breathe, as if there is not enough air. In fact, this is caused by the inability of the chest to expand. Doing this frequently can lead to increased burden on the heart and induce heart disease. The posture of compressing the chest frequently in women may also induce breast diseases.
When napping on a desk, people tend to put their arms or hands under their heads. These people often experience shoulder pain and numbness in their arms, which may be closely related to frequently using the arm as a pillow for napping. Napping on a desk naturally involves using the arm as a pillow, and the head frequently compresses the arms, which affects blood circulation and nerve conduction in the arms, causing numbness and pain in the arms and shoulders, and sometimes even causing chronic nerve damage. Even with treatment, it is not easy to recover, and the resulting sequelae may even persist for a lifetime.
In fact, besides lying on a bed, it is also possible to nap on a chair with the head "resting" on the back of the chair, which is even better.
