It’s not new, good sleep is essential for our physical and mental health. We currently know that the consequences of lack of sleep are numerous: depression, risk of overweight, diabetes, heart disease… Chronic fatigue can really promote the appearance of many diseases.
A new study goes further and proves the importance of sleep for health cardiovascular disease and on an individual’s life expectancy. Presented at the annual scientific session of theAmerican College of Cardiology with the World Congress of Cardiology, research has shown that people who have good sleeping habits from an early age are more likely to live a long life. Scientists also estimate that approximately 8% of deathswhatever the cause, might be attributed to lack of sleep.
“We found that the more beneficial factors a person has in terms of quality of sleepthe more it reduces its risk of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality,” said study participant Frank Qian, MD, internal medicine resident.
Sleep: certain habits can save you more than 4 years of life expectancy
According to a Harvard Medical School clinician – who is co-author of the study – getting the right number of hours of sleep is not enough. “You really must have a restful sleep and not have much trouble falling asleep and staying asleep”.
To reach their conclusions, the study authors analyzed data from 172,321 people aged 50 on average. The researchers looked at their sleeping habits. They were thus able to examine the association between sleep-related behaviors combined with all-cause mortality.
The participants were followed for more than 4 years. Period during which 8,681 people died. Of these deaths, 2,610 deaths (30%) were due to cardiovascular disease, 2,052 (24%) were due to cancer, and 4,019 (46%) were due to other causes.
Scientists have identified 5 factors indicating the quality of sleep.
“If people had all of these sleep behaviors, they might live longer,” said one of the researchers. Indeed, the volunteers who declared during the study to follow five good sleeping habits cited by scientists of the quality of sleep would have gained 4.7 years of life expectancy for men and 2.4 years for women (compared to others).
These 5 habits are to be adopted from an early age, say the researchers. Medisite delivers the manual.
