There’s a sweet spot…
Anyone who’s ever had a bad night’s sleep will know the misery it can cause in your life. You feel lethargic, cranky, and you believe that no amount of coffee in the world will cure the tiredness seeping into your eyes from your fading brain.
But everyone knows that continued lack of sleep is bad for your health in a variety of ways, but some probably don’t realise just how bad it is for you.
A study conducted by Dr Epameinondas Fountas, of the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre, Athens, Greece, found that both too little sleep and too much sleep can be detrimental to your health.
“We spend one-third of our lives sleeping yet we know little about the impact of this biological need on the cardiovascular system,” Fountas said.
Fountas’ team looked at 11 studies with more than one million participants, and their findings shed more light on the impacts of sleep deprivation.
They’ve come to the conclusion that the sweet spot for sleepers is 6-8 hours and that more of less can affect your health.
The researchers found that both short and long sleepers had a greater risk of developing or dying from coronary artery disease or stroke.
In comparison to adults who slept six to eight hours a night, short and long sleepers had 11% and 33% greater risks, respectively, of developing or dying from coronary artery disease or stroke during an average follow-up of 9.3 years.
Dr Fountas said: “Our findings suggest that too much or too little sleep may be bad for the heart. More research is needed to clarify exactly why, but we do know that sleep influences biological processes like glucose metabolism, blood pressure, and inflammation – all of which have an impact on cardiovascular disease.”
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