According to recent studies being presented at the World Congress of Cardiology and the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session, getting enough sleep can improve your heart and overall health, and possibly even how long you live. According to the study, young people who sleep better had a somewhat lower risk of dying young. Furthermore, the statistics imply that irregular sleep habits may account for around 8% of deaths from any cause.
Medical Center, a co-author of the paper and a clinical fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School. “These results, in my opinion, highlight the fact that merely getting enough sleep is insufficient. You must sleep soundly and have little difficulty getting and staying asleep.”
Data from 172,321 persons (average age 50 and 54% women) who took part in the National Health Interview Survey between 2013 and 2018 were included in Qian and team’s research. The National Center for Health Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conduct this poll each year to assess the nation’s health.population and asks about sleep and sleeping patterns. According to Qian, this is the first study that he is aware of that examined how different sleep behaviors—instead of just sleep duration—might affect life expectancy.
The majority of survey participants—about two thirds—identified as White, 14.5% Hispanic, 12.6% Black, and 5.5% Asian. Researchers were able to analyze the relationship between individual and combined sleep variables and overall and cause-specific mortality because participants could be linked to the National Death Index records (until December 31, 2019). Following the participants for a median of 4.3 years, 8,681 people passed away during that time. 2,610 deaths (30%), 2,052 deaths (24%) and 4,019 deaths (46%) were caused by cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other causes.
Researchers assessed five different factors of quality sleep using a low-risk sleep score they created based on answers collected as part of the survey. Factors included: 1) ideal sleep duration of seven to eight hours a night; 2) difficulty falling asleep no more than two times a week; 3) trouble staying asleep no more than two times a week; 4) not using any sleep medication; and 5) feeling well rested after waking up at least five days a week. Each factor was assigned zero or one point for each, for a maximum of five points, which indicated the highest quality sleep.
“If people have all these ideal sleep behaviors, they are more likely to live longer,” Qian said. “So, if we can improve sleep overall, and identifying sleep disorders is especially important, we may be able to prevent some of this premature mortality.”
