It’s not grim. It just is.

Life’s a boxing match and your opponent is Mike Tyson in his prime.

But that’s OK if you do your best to dodge and parry Iron Mike’s punches. If you manage to stay on your feet, continue to compete, land a few solid shots of your own, and give the referee no reason to stop the fight early.

The goal is to go down for the count only after giving “The Baddest Man on the Planet” all you got for 15 rounds.

My part in this pugilistic metaphor is to serve as Mickey the trainer to your Rocky Balboa. But my words of wisdom today will not be one of boxing’s and outdated beliefs - like regularly jogging 5 miles at a 10-minutes-per-mile pace is needed to knock Mike Tyson, Apollo Creed, or whomever to the canvas.

It comes dated June 20, 2023, is found in the journal Sleep Health, and addresses two things you normally don’t associate with boxing. Napping and brain health.

Researchers working at three separate sites, analyzed data available through the UK Biobank on 378,932 people whose average age was 57 at the start of their participation. The info included brain scans and the full genetic makeup of 35,080 of the participants.

Now prior research has established 92 genetic variants tend to make people more likely to take naps, so the researchers compared those of the 35,080 who have these characteristics to those who don’t. They discovered those who do have greater brain volume.

So what makes this difference, an average of 16 cubic centimeters, worth telling you about?

Brain size decreases with age. The generally agreed upon rate has healthy individuals losing a tiny bit, about .2% yearly, starting around the age of 35 - a rate that tends to increase to .5% per year by the time you reach 60.

Making it quite possible for you to lose 20% of your brain size by 85.

A decrease in brain volume has been linked to cognitive decline and neurodegenerative diseases, such as spinal muscular atrophy, Friedreich ataxia, Lewy body disease, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often called ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Now we need to be clear about something because the paper about the study certainly is. The researchers found no direct link to napping reducing the sort of cognitive decline or the diseases associated with brain aging.

The research wasn’t constructed to do that.

The only question about napping in the UK Biobank info asks if you nap “never/rarely,” “sometimes,” or “usually.”

But - and it’s a pretty significant “but” - the paper definitively states the difference in total brain volume between those genetically prone to napping as opposed to those who are not “approximately equates” to the difference “between people with normal cognitive function and mild cognitive impairment.” The larger total brain volume in those with the genetic tendency to take naps also equates to less brain aging.

Up to 6.5 fewer years.

To conclude the paper, the authors suggest a link between napping and better brain health as you age, but that additional research into the matter is needed. With that being the case, it would be foolish for me to urge non-nappers to change their ways - if the possibility of reduced brain aging was the only reason to do so.

But it’s not. Not by a long shot.

Most of the other benefits of napping don’t occur years later but immediately afterward. The Mayo Clinic’s list of them, for instance, includes reduced fatigue, increased alertness, and improved mood and performance.

While I’ve found all of this to be true, what sold me on napping nearly 30 years ago is a next-day benefit. A nap of 30 minutes or so after a long and intense bicycle ride - one that lasts longer than three hours with at least a third of the time at a race pace - allows me to recover from the effort much faster.

In fact, if the cycling gods are kind, I can usually ride just as long and at almost the same level of intensity the following day.

I believe a twist I add to my naps leads to this. I place my legs against a door at a 90-degree angle to my upper body.

Having your legs higher than your heart, according to old-school cyclists, expedites blood flow, increasing the rate in which inflammation is removed from the muscles, much like a leg massage.

Now it would seem to me that any sort of leg fatigue - whether it’s from walking, hiking, running, or just standing on your feet for a full work shift - could be lessened by this sort of napping. So the next time your legs feel dead, why not give L-shaped napping a try?

Or better still, get in the habit of doing so once or twice a weekend as a proactive measure to keep your legs fresh for the workweek ahead.