Women Who Nap Have Greater Risk of Dying

While previous research suggested napping is good for your health, new study found that older women who take naps every day were 44 percent more likely to die compared to women who did not nap.

Specifically, the women were 58 percent more likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 59 percent more likely to die from non-cardiovascular, non-cancer causes. For the study, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, researchers studied 8,101 Caucasian women over age 69 for seven years. The researchers also found that older woman who slept 9-10 hours a day had a higher mortality rate than those who slept 8-9 hours per day. Yet, study co-author Katie L. Stone said that older people shouldn’t avoid napping. “Since excessive sleep suggests that night time sleep is disrupted, interventions to treat sleep disorders and improve sleep quality in older women may reduce mortality risk,” said Stone. [UPI]