A good night’s sleep isn’t just crucial for your heart; it has huge implications for your entire system.

In the past few years, new data has emerged about the health effects of sleep, and some of it is frankly quite astonishing. Many studies have found an association between 7 hours of sleep and optimal health. Those who sleep less than seven hours and those who sleep more both tend to have health problems. Of course we don’t know if the hours of sleep are the cause or the result. In other words, poor health could be the cause of the increased mortality and poor sleep merely a marker of that. However, we do have increasing reasons to suspect that the sleep itself is crucial.

sleep tight and look right

 Sleep and Heart

One prospective study of 17,000 healthy adults examined the role of four traditional lifestyle factors (physical activity, a healthy diet, moderate alcohol consumption and not smoking) along with the added benefit of sufficient sleep duration (>=7 hours). During over a decade of follow up, those with these healthy lifestyle factors had a 67% lower risk of fatal heart disease compared to those with none or only one. Those with sufficient sleep in addition to the four had an 83% reduction in risk. So when sufficient sleep was added to the other lifestyle factors, the risk of cardiovascular diseases was further reduced.

dreaming and listening to R.E.M

Research shows that poor sleep directly the health of your arteries. The ability of arteries to dilate is a mark of their health – and lower sleep quality – including length of sleep or snoring during sleep have Continue reading “Insomniacs – Sleep is the New Workout!!!” »