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The
Daily Gyro February 14, 2007 Greek Naps Great For Heart There has been so much talk out of Greece with respect to heart disease most notably on the virtues of the Mediterranean diet. But while people can eat more Greek, this is an attempt to inspire people to be more Greek. Much has been made about the study released this week of the napping habits of over 23,000 Greek adults as it relates to heart disease. According to the Harvard School of Public Health’s five-year study led by Dimitrios Trichopoulos, those who took midday naps were over 30% less likely to die of heart disease. (The risk was lessened by 64% amongst the working men in the study.) There has been so much talk out of Greece with respect to heart disease most notably on the virtues of the Mediterranean diet. But while people can eat more Greek, this is an attempt to inspire people to be more Greek. Some of this has to be backlash by Greek researchers against increasing Westernization and the degradation of essentially Greek values and using health fears to justify it. "If you visit many countries, during the middle of the day everything stops. People have an opportunity to have a large meal and take a nap," Trichopoulos said. "With globalization, this is out. If this turns out to be right, people may think again before introducing the continuous, stopless activity that's happening with globalization." The siesta, practiced in Greece, Spain, Portugal and other European nations that traditionally rank near the bottom of EU productivity, is so contrary to the American and Northern European work ethic. Twenty years ago the idea of everything in Greece shutting down in the middle of the afternoon was so prevalent that even state run television would go off the air during that time. Maybe the only way to save the siesta in Greece from being pushed out by pressure to further Westernize is to link it to something so critical -- like death.
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