Sleep Health 1 (2015) 227–228
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Sleep Health Journal of the National Sleep Foundation journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/sleh
Editorial
Siesta by decree or sound policy to promote sleep health? Lessons from a municipal proclamation in a rural Spanish town
On July 15, 2015, a news article published in a regional paper in Valencia, Spain was quickly picked up by Spanish national news media; Joan Faus, the mayor of Ador, a small town (population 1400) in the province of Valencia, had issued a proclamation (“bando” in Spanish) requesting that the town’s residents try to keep noise levels down between 2:00 and 5:00 PM. The proclamation, which is broadcast on town loudspeakers during the hottest days of the summer states that: “In order to guarantee everyones’s rest and thus better deal with the rigors of the summer, we ask you to please respect the midday hours of rest from 2 to 5 pm, keeping children at home and keeping the volume of music and television at acceptable levels.” The story went viral. Headlines offered by the Spanish media include the following: “siesta by decree”; “siesta by order of the mayor” 1; "siesta is declared 'sacred' in small Spanish town”; and “Ador, the Valencian town where taking a siesta is mandatory.” In a radio interview, when asked whether he would call the police to enforce compliance with the “order,” Mayor Faus patiently insisted that the proclamation is not an imposition but a “recommendation,” adding that “[we] actually don’t even have police in this town!” News organizations in the United Kingdom and other Northern European countries (whose citizens often spend summer vacations or even retire in this area of Spain) seemed particularly amused by the news story. On July 17, a Daily Mail headline read “Mayor says children must be kept inside between 2 pm and 5 pm and tells town to be quiet as it becomes the first in Spain to have an official afternoon nap time,” 2 none of which was true. A Dutch television reporter traveled to Ador and in her reporting stated, “what makes this so interesting is that the mayor is virtually obliging people to take a siesta.” The story struck a chord beyond Europe and was picked up by news organizations around the globe, including those in Australia and the Americas. In the United States, the anchors of 12 News, an NBC affiliate in Arizona, tweeted Phoenix’s mayor pictures of themselves pretending to sleep on the anchors' desk. Greg Stanton, the city’s mayor, tweeted back: “mandatory naps? Sounds interesting, I am thinking it over,” with a picture of himself napping on a couch.3 I contacted Ador’s Mayor Faus to get his thoughts on the worldwide media’s reaction to the story. Thrilled with the attention this news story has brought to his small town, Mayor Faus seemed more amused than bothered by the exaggerations. He said he was surprised by the sudden media frenzy this summer, as this is a long-standing tradition in the town (“as far back as I remember,” according to Faus, who grew up in Ador) and also common in many
small towns in the area. He also clarified that this proclamation is read occasionally over the town loudspeakers, especially in the heat of summer when people without air conditioning need to nap with their windows open. He explained that this is important for “people who get up early in the morning to work in the fields harvesting oranges,” an important local crop, “particularly when early afternoon temperatures reach 105 degrees Fahrenheit or higher.” “We don’t enforce this,” insists Mayor Faus, “but everyone cooperates and limits the use of loud equipment such as motorcycles and the like during the early afternoon hours.” He says the policy is widely popular and respected, including among the town’s foreign residents. The media’s reaction to this story raises some interesting issues. Namely, why is it that a common-sense approach to reducing noise levels at a time when a significant proportion of the population is trying to rest is so shocking to so many? Noise pollution is considered a health hazard. 4–6 In the United States, federal and state and local regulations aim to control noise levels that might endanger the health and well-being of the population.7,8 Many of these regulations focus on noise around industrial areas, airports, and the like, although local ordinances often try to limit noise levels (eg, use of power equipment, barking dogs) during nighttime hours. It appears that the media uproar was sparked by the fact that the recommendation was specifically issued for the afternoon hours, the time of the “siesta.” This may reflect a cultural disconnect between Northern and Southern European societies. Spaniards are often the subject of scorn because of what some consider a pattern of lazy behavior that explains the country’s low productivity. A 2013 article published in The Guardian blamed an “historical anomaly” for Spain’s “chaotic working hours” (the late lunch and dinner, the afternoon napping), namely, General Franco’s 1942 decision to “change the country’s time zone to coincide with Germany’s in an act of solidarity with his fascist ally”!9 Of course, afternoon napping was common in Spain many centuries before Franco and Hitler became friends, and it is also a widely accepted behavior in most, if not all, Mediterranean cultures, as well as in Africa, Latin America, and extensive regions of Asia, including China.10 There is compelling evidence that the natural sleep/wake cycle in humans is circasemidian (or semicircadian),11 which explains the early afternoon drowsiness that occurs in most people. Subjects in experimental, time-free environments tend to nap more frequently12 without negatively affecting their night sleep.13 Furthermore, napping is ubiquitous in all animal species and appears to be chronobiologically regulated.14
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2015.10.003 2352-7218/© 2015 National Sleep Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Editorial
This evidence leads us to question whether afternoon napping is a natural and physiologically determined behavior that has been culturally suppressed in predominantly Anglo-Saxon industrialized societies. Possible health benefits of napping include reduced rates of cardiovascular events, hypertension, and obesity, 15–18 although some studies have shown an increased risk of mortality and metabolic disorders associated with napping.19–22 The latter observations, however, appear to be limited to long naps and could be potentially explained by confounding or reverse causation (napping in some people being a marker of ill health).22 These epidemiologic controversies aside, there is solid evidence that napping improves mood, cognitive function, and alertness and increases work productivity. 23–25 In response, some businesses are starting to give workers the space and the time to take power naps when they feel the need.26–28 Mayor Faus and the citizens of Ador might offer a lesson or two about sleep health and well-being to those of us who live in “modern” societies, including those in urban Spain and other regions moving away from tradition and increasingly adopting the sleep patterns that are normative in Northern European nations (ie, sleep restricted to nighttime).29 The next time you feel the warm wave of afternoon drowsiness and lie down to take a siesta to the sound of your next door neighbor’s lawnmower, you may wish Joan Faus were your mayor too. Disclosure Dr Nieto holds a Helfaer Endowed Chair from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently receiving funding from the National Institutes of Health as well as from the Wisconsin Partnership Program. In the past, he served in the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Sleep Medicine and Research and in the National Institutes of Health Sleep Disorders Research Advisory Board; he is currently a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors at the National Center for Health Statistics–Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a member of the Editorial Board of this journal, for which he receives no compensation.
F. Javier Nieto, MD, MPH, PhD Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, 610 Walnut St, WARF 707C, Madison, WI E-mail address:
[email protected]
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