Proper way of sleeping can add 5 years to life; understand

Want to live longer? So, make sleep a priority in your life: Following five good sleep habits added nearly five years to a man’s life expectancy and nearly 2.5 years to a woman’s life, according to a new study.

“If people have all these ideal sleep behaviors, they’re more likely to live longer,” said study co-author Frank Qian, clinical fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School and resident physician in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. in Boston, United States.

“If we can improve sleep in general, and identifying sleep disorders is especially important, we may be able to prevent some of this premature mortality,” Qian said in a statement.

What do you do? First, make sure you get seven to eight hours of sleep a night. This is difficult for many people: 1 in 3 Americans is sleep deprived, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

But you have to do more than just stay in bed longer – you also need to get uninterrupted, restful sleep more often than ever.

This means you don’t wake up during the night or have trouble falling asleep more than twice a week. You should also feel well rested at least five days a week when you wake up. And finally, you cannot use sleeping pills to get to sleep.

“We’re not just talking about quality and quantity of sleep, but regularity, getting the same good sleep night after night,” said sleep expert Raj Dasgupta, associate professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of the University of Southern California, who was not involved in the study.

“Recent studies have shown that irregularity in sleep time and duration was associated with metabolic abnormalities and increased risk of cardiovascular disease,” he said. “Encouraging maintenance of regular sleep schedules with consistent sleep durations could be an important part of lifestyle recommendations for preventing heart disease.”

A difference between men and women

The preliminary study, presented Thursday at an annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology, analyzed data from more than 172,000 people who completed sleep questionnaires between 2013 and 2018 as part of the National Health Survey. The annual survey is conducted by the CDC and the US National Center for Health Statistics.

Each of the five healthy sleep habits—falling asleep easily, staying asleep, getting seven to eight hours of sleep, waking up refreshed, and forgoing sleeping pills—was given a number. People were scored on how many of the five habits they had.

About four years later, researchers compared those scores with National Death Index records to see if their sleep behaviors contributed to an early death from certain illnesses or any other cause.

The team then considered other potential causes for an increased risk of death, such as alcohol consumption, low socioeconomic status, and existing medical conditions.

“Compared to subjects who had zero to one favorable sleep factors, those who had all five were 30% less likely to die from any reason, 21% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, 19% less likely to die from cancer, and 40% less likely to die from causes other than heart disease or cancer,” according to a study release.

Men who followed all five healthy sleep habits had a life expectancy 4.7 years longer than people who had none or only one of the five elements of low-risk sleep, according to the study.

The impact of healthy sleep habits was much smaller for women: those who followed all five sleep habits gained 2.4 years compared to those who followed none or just one.

“That was an interesting part of the study for me and I hope we can find that answer with more research,” said Dasgupta. A potential reason for this gender difference, he added, could be the difficulty of evaluating women for obstructive sleep apnea, a potentially deadly condition in which breathing stops every few minutes. The more severe the apnea, the greater the risk of coronary artery disease, heart attacks, heart failure and strokes.

“Women with obstructive sleep apnea are often underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed because they may not have the classic symptoms that we see when we screen men,” Dasgupta said. “Perhaps we need to ask different questions or look at different parameters, or is something missing here?”

good sleep hygiene

Would your score be less than five? Don’t worry – the good news is that you can easily train your brain to sleep better by following what’s called good “sleep hygiene”. It’s important to go to bed at the same time most nights and wake up at the same time most mornings – even on weekends and holidays.

Make sure your sleeping environment is ideal – cooler and darker is better – and block out noise or try a sound machine. Avoid drinking before bed — it might seem like you’re falling asleep more easily, but when your liver finishes metabolizing alcohol at 3 am, your body wakes up, experts say.

Establish a sleep routine, without blue lights or distractions, at least an hour before bed. Try meditation, yoga, tai chi, hot baths – anything that relaxes you is great.

Parents and caregivers can learn these habits and teach them to their children, giving them a better chance at a longer life, Qian said.

“Even from a young age, if people can develop these good sleep habits of getting enough sleep, making sure they’re sleeping without too many distractions, and having good overall sleep hygiene, it can greatly benefit their overall health in the long term,” he said. he.

“Just as we like to say, ‘It’s never too late to exercise or quit smoking,’ it’s never too early either. And we should talk and assess sleep more often.”