The quality of your sleep is as important as getting enough sleep when it comes to supporting your heart and overall health and may even help you live longer, according to research conducted by the Harvard Medical School.
What to Know
Five factors are involved in achieving quality sleep, including sleep duration of 7 to 8 hours a night, whether there was difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep more than two times a week, not using any sleep medication, and feeling well rested after waking up at least 5 days a week.
Those who had all five factors were 30% less likely to die for any reason, 21% were less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, 19% were less likely to die from cancer, and 40% were less likely to die of other causes.
Among men and women who reported having all five quality sleep measures, life expectancy was 4.7 years greater for men and 2.4 years greater for women compared with those who had none or only one of the five favorable elements of low-risk sleep.
About 8% of deaths from any cause could be attributed to poor sleep patterns.
Developing good sleep habits early in life can be important because young people who have more beneficial sleep habits are incrementally less likely to die early in life.
This is a summary of the article, "Low-Risk Sleep Patterns, Mortality, and Life Expectancy at Age 30 Years: A Prospective Study of 172,321 US Adults," presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology on March 6, 2023. The full article can be found on acc.org.
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Cite this: Sleeping Well Can Add Years to Your Life - Medscape - Jun 16, 2023.
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