COVID-19: I Love Naps

From Worldometer,  COVID-19 new deaths:

           DAY USA   WORLD   Brazil      India   South Africa

June      9     1093    4732        1185      246         82

July       1       676    4857        1057      438         92

             5       251    3572          535       421       173

             7       993    5504        1312       479       192

           12       380    4118          659       500       108

           14       935    5414        1341       586       174

           15     1001    5760        1261       614       107

           19       412    4606          715       675         85

           21     1119    5669        1346       671        195

           22     1205    7128        1293     1120        572

           26       450    4307         556       715        114
           28    1266     5589         955       776        190
           30    1485     7023       1544       779        240
           31    1465     6418       1189       783        315
Aug      1    1462     6429       1191       765        193
            2     1123     5601       1048       852        148
            3       467     4430         514       514        213

            4       567     4366         572       810        173
            5     1362     6292       1394       849        345
            6     1311     6832       1322       919        414
            7     1203     6452       1226       899        306

            8     1250     6448       1058       940        305

Summary:

• The USA is back into first place with the most new cases and new deaths.
• Thailand had no new deaths, and with 15 new cases, is now #112 in the world with 3345 cases.  Hawaii is catching up, with 201 new cases and 3092 total cases.  Hawaii is the best state in the union for avoiding this virus.  Keep in mind that Thailand has a population of 70 million, while that of Hawaii is 1.4 million.  Just what is the USA doing wrong???  I know when I was in Thailand as recently as February, everyone walking around had on masks...except me.  Maybe that's the reason.  At least I now today wear one, sometimes with a face shield, anytime I go out of my door.
• South Korea had 20 new cases and one death.
• Japan is concerned, with 1552 new cases, but only 7 new deaths.
• China is now #30 in total cases, and had 37 new cases, with no new deaths.

Today, I present the pleasure of naps.  All my life I never had any trouble sleeping at night, until the past couple of years, when this has become an adventure.  I can initially fall asleep within a few minutes 95% of the time, but once I wake up and go to the restroom, the second time becomes a challenge.  A third, and I watch TV to get sleepy again.

More recently, I noticed that I could fall asleep when my blood pressure was lower.  Like after a meal, when my normal 135/78 can drop to 110/65, and below. 

I take two high blood pressure pills, with one also being a diuretic.   I thus need to be careful which to take when, for waking up is the problem if I want to go back to sleep.

All through adulthood I almost never took naps.  Maybe a dozen in my whole life, meaning once every few years.  I was just too busy and could not justify wasting time by sleeping in the afternoon.

That has nicely changed.  If I have 5 hours or less of sleep a night, I just take a nap.  Makes the sleep process less stressful when I know I can do this.  Now I don't need to suffer a whole day and evening fatigued and mentally messed up.  Surprisingly, if I take a two-hour nap, I can still sleep at night, which sometimes is only a few hours later.

When I lived in my previous apartment, I had 6 to 7 hours of sleep, and temperature depended on the weather because I was loathe to use the air conditioner.  Now, with the temperature at 70F in total quiet--one of the benefits of being in 15 Craigside--sleep conditions are perfect. Previous to these past few months of quarantine, I needed to stay in bed 10 hours to get up to 8 hours of actual sleep.  But now, breakfast is delivered as early as 6:45.  That wipes out my ability to sleep anything close to 8 hours.  Thus, the beauty of naps.

Finally, I noticed that when I walked 18 holes on a golf course, I could sleep better.  Now in quarantine into the fifth month, the situation is almost the same after 1.5 hours of semi-rigorous exercise in our wellness center on MWF.

Medical research reveals that napping:

• Can improve your memory.
• Makes it easier to synthesize solutions.
• Keeps your work performance more consistent.
• Makes you more creative.
• Lifts your mood.
• Prepares you for a long night.
• Eases stress.
• Lowers your blood pressure.
• Helps your heart.
• Amazingly enough, helps you sleep better at night.  You would think that your body might have had enough.

So how long should you nap?

• If in your office, half an hour should suffice, but this limits the benefits.
• One hour or more increases your longevity.
• About sleeping at night:

• Research suggests that regularly sleeping for less than seven hours a night can have negative effects on the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, and nervous systems. Side effects of sleep deprivation can include obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension, anxiety, depression, alcohol abuse, stroke and increased risk of developing some types of cancer.
• A 2014 study found that sleeping six hours per night increases your risk of having a car crash by 33% compared to sleeping seven or eight hours a night.

But, whoops, there is a sweet sleep spot--between 7 and 8 hours of sleep/night:

• Another study looking at more than 30,000 people found that sleeping nine or more hours a night had an increased incidence of stroke of 23% compared to those sleeping seven to eight hours a night. Those who both slept over nine hours and napped for 90-plus minutes during the day had an 85% increased stroke risk.5
• 10 hours or more can result in depression.  But if could well be that the depression condition causes you to sleep more.  I once read that death row inmates sleep 16 hours/night.
• Sleeping less than 7 hours/night increased your risk of death by 24%, while sleeping more than 8 hour/night also increased your risk of death, by 17%.

But then, how much sleep depends on your age:

I did not realize that the medical recommendation for sleep actually dropped from the age of 65.  In any case, one of the benefits of being in quarantine is that now I can count on naps to improve my health.

One of my Amazon.com purchases was a $25 sleep machine, made by HoMEDICS.  You can mimic the sounds of a bubbling brook, the ocean, a summer night, thunder and white noise.  The quality is quite good, except my mind does not work that way.  Like logic leads me to believe that there is no Heaven, I can mostly imagine that the source is electronic and what I'm hearing is not real.  Maybe over time I'll overcome that problem.  It's better than counting sheep.

The following photo was sent to me of Pearl's Gold Koi and a puppy:

I'm still planning on an around the world trip, probably starting in 16 months.  There will be a stop in Dubai for the World Expo.  However, there are other sights, such as their Miracle Garden:

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