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A Good Reason to Stay in Bed
This Week's Tips
Is your sleep quality kind of poor? Then go ahead and sleep in. New research shows it might be best for your health.
Yep, a study links poor sleep to a greater risk of high blood pressure. But making up for fitful shut-eye with some extra ZZZs seemed to level the risk back down.
Dangers in Dreamland
In the study, researchers surveyed the sleep habits of 1,700 middle-aged adults and had each of them spend a night in a sleep lab. People who slept less than 5 total hours were twice as likely to have high blood pressure as those who slept 6 hours or more. And a self-reported history of sleep problems greatly compounded the effect. But -- and this is the good news -- any fitful sleepers who still got at least 6 hours of total sleep didn't have the extra hypertension risk. Do you know which parts of your body naturally control your blood pressure? Read this article for a new perspective that could help lower your numbers.
Solutions for Better Sleep
The combo of short sleep and poor sleep increases heart rate and bumps up production of stress hormones, which could help explain these recent study results. Not getting the shut-eye your body needs to stay healthy? Time to get serious about slumber with these easy drift-off-to-sleep strategies:
- Pull the plug. Find out what surfing the Web late at night does to your sleep rhythms.
- Let your worries out. Here's how setting aside time to worry can help you knock off.
- Don't forget to stretch. These limber-up activities can help you fall asleep faster.
RealAge Benefit:
Getting 6 to 8 hours of sleep per night can make your RealAge as much as 3 years younger.
Insomnia with objective short sleep duration is associated with a high risk for hypertension. Vgontzas, A. N. et al., Sleep 2009 Apr 1;32(4):491-497.
