Constantly sleepy during daytime? New study reveals some people are 'born to nap'
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The research suggests that a person's propensity to taking afternoon naps are genetics in nature.
A new research has unlocked the secrets as to why some of us can doze off without much effort during the daytime while others struggle mightily to fall asleep.
Apparently, a person's ability to sleep might have something to do with genetics if we are to believe a study conducted by scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
“Napping is somewhat controversial,” says Dr. Hassan Saeed Dashti of the MGH Center for Genomic Medicine.
“It was important to try to disentangle the biological pathways that contribute to why we nap.”
To come up with answers, the team gathered and analyzed genetic information from 452,633 people. They conducted a genome-wide association study (GWAS) on participants coming from 123 regions in the human genome known for daytime napping.
The researchers asked the participants about their napping habits including how often they nap within a day for comparison.
Some participants were asked to wear accelerometers or activity monitors designed to generate data about daytime sedentary behavior.
It helped that most of the regions identified are known for their sleep consumption thus giving researchers a good head start in their study.
Three potential napping mechanisms were identified in the process: disrupted sleep, early morning awakening, and sleep propensity.
The first and second types pertain to people who either take a nap for lack of sleep during the previous night or because they wake up too early during the day.
Some, though, simply requires more sleep and that explains the third classification.
Health issues like high blood pressure and obesity can also affect one's napping habits according to the study.
“This tells us that daytime napping is biologically driven and not just an environmental or behavioral choice,” Dr. Dashti mentions.
“Future work may help to develop personalized recommendations for siesta,” Marta Garaulet, co-author of the study, added.
Several of the napping gene variants, on the other hand, were associated with orexin, a neuropeptide, linked to wakefulness.
“This pathway is known to be involved in rare sleep disorders like narcolepsy, but our findings show that smaller perturbations in the pathway can explain why some people nap more than others,” Iyas Daghlas, co-lead author of the report said.
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