A siesta (Spanish, meaning "nap") is a short nap taken in the early afternoon, often after the midday meal. In our beautiful Goa, the siesta is quite ingrained in our culture – who doesn’t enjoy an afternoon nap? And with local politicians promising ‘compulsory siesta hour’ in exchange for votes, even famed satirists claim they want to move to Goa because “all the good stuff happens there - mandatory naps, casinos, feni, and they even had Milind Soman running in nothing more than his birthday suit on the beach last month.”
Contrary to popular belief and associations of this infamous nap with an easygoing or even indolent populace, the ‘siesta’ originated from one of the world’s mightiest empires.
According to Juan José Ortega, vice president of the Spanish Society of Sleep and a somnologist, the word siesta originated in Italy and comes from the Latin ‘sexta’ or six, as the Romans stopped to eat and rest at the sixth hour of the day. From its Roman origins, the siesta became a cross cultural phenomenon, but it was Spain’s peculiar working hours (in post civil – war Spain, the working day was split into two parts as many people worked two jobs to support their families) that gave Spaniards the opportunity to fit the siesta into their day.
Siestas are common in Spanish and Portuguese influenced cultures around the world but also typically occur in hot or tropical climates, allowing people to sleep through the hottest part of the day and avoid the sun’s strong midday rays, for example, Greece, Italy, Bahrain and Nigeria, to name a few. It isn’t a new phenomenon in India also, with the Greek explorer and traveller Megasthenes, who came to India more than two millennia ago, writing in his book Indica that the people of India loved to sleep during day-time, especially after taking their midday meals.
So is it time to put the tired Goan siesta stereotype and the satire around it to bed? Medical evidence certainly seems to think so!
To look for a link between siestas and the risk of heart disease, scientists from the University of Athens Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health studied 23,681 Greek men and women. Among the entire group, siestas of any duration or frequency were associated with a 34% lower risk of dying from heart disease, even after accounting for other risk factors. Occasional napping was linked to a 12% reduction in cardiac mortality, but regular napping appeared to reduce risk by 37%.
While the possible cardiac benefits of napping will require more study, there are other, well-documented benefits. Studies of shift workers, airline flight crews, medical interns, and highway drivers have all reported that naps as short as 20-30 minutes decrease fatigue and improve psychomotor performance, mood, and alertness. Even Ronaldo, amongst the greatest athletes of our times, attributes his performances to the afternoon nap.
Memory Studies have also shown that sleep plays an important role in storing memories. A nap can help you remember things learned earlier in the day as much as a full night’s sleep. It also helps you be more creative - REM sleep, which typically starts 70 to 90 minutes after sleep, activates parts of the brain associated with imagery and dreaming.
Siestas also offer the benefits of lifting your mood and acting as a stress buster. If you’re under a lot of pressure, a nap can release stress and improve immune health. A study found that people who napped for 45 to 60 minutes had lower blood pressure after going through mental stress. Experts say relaxation that comes from lying down and resting is a mood booster, whether you fall asleep or not.
Finally and though it may seem illogical, taking a nap during the day can help older adults improve better at night. Studies show a 30-minute nap between 1 pm and 3 pm combined with moderate exercise, like a walk and stretching in the evening, helps improve nighttime sleep. Mental and physical health can get better, as well. The siesta can also help the little ones - many preschool-age children stop napping long before they enter kindergarten. Naps are critical for learning and development at that age and children who nap regularly are better able to recall things they learned.
So when should you siesta?
To get the most benefits out of a nap, you need to time it right. Most people will find an afternoon snooze to be the most natural and helpful. Some say sleep is better between 2 and 3 p.m., when humans naturally have a dip in alertness. The time that works best for you will depend on how rested you are to begin with. If you’re well-rested, a slightly later nap is better. If you’re behind on sleep, you’ll want to nap earlier.
Do siestas have a place in the modern world though? While there are divided opinions on this, experts think that the traditional siesta does still have a place in the modern working world, especially when so many of us are apparently already sleep-deprived.
Even in this brave new world, that harps on value addition and productivity in order to be considered an useful asset to society, if the siesta refreshes workers and improves productivity, memory and motor skills, perhaps it can and should be redesigned for modern life.
(Dr. Francisco Colaço is a seniormost consulting physician, pioneer of Echocardiography in Goa)