Going to bed and waking up at the same time each day is more important than how long you sleep, according to a recently published study by Australian, American and British researchers published in the journal Sleep. In other words, if you sleep six hours every night, but in a regular rhythm, you are exposed to a lower risk of early death than if you sleep eight hours, while going to rest at different times every night, it says Jutarnji list.
The study involved 60 subjects from the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database containing detailed genetic and health information on more than half a million people. The subjects' average age was just under 977, and within eight years they died in 63. The researchers found that greater regularity when it came to sleep was associated with a 1859 to 20 percent lower risk of mortality regardless of cause. Also, regular sleep was associated with a 48 to 16 percent lower risk of death from cancer, as well as a 39 to 22 percent lower risk of cardiometabolic death, which includes cardiovascular disease, type 57 diabetes and obesity-related complications.
"Sleep duration still mattered: People who slept long and regularly had the lowest risk of early death. But shorter, more regular sleep was in most cases associated with lower mortality than longer, inconsistent sleep. That's welcome news for people whose work and family demands make it difficult to achieve the recommended seven to nine hours a night," study co-author Dr. Angus Burns from Harvard.
"Many people feel constrained by social or work demands. If you at least get to sleep in a regular rhythm, you will be doing something for your health. However, even the healthiest sleepers have some variability in their bedtimes and wake-up times. Try to reduce that variability in keep your sleep and wake times within one to two hours," Burns added.
It is undeniable that people in the West today sleep an hour or two less on average than a few decades ago, and many are chronically sleep-deprived. One study found that about 20 percent of people rarely or almost never wake up rested. But lack of sleep is very dangerous: a fifth of traffic accidents are related to fatigue. Insomnia directly affects health, as demonstrated by several epidemiological studies published in the last ten years. For example, a study was published in the journal Science that indicates a connection between the reduced number of hours of sleep in humans and the increase in obesity and diabetes. This is explained by the fact that lack of sleep disrupts the mechanism that affects our appetite and stimulates hunger.
A study of 10 British civil servants over 000 years showed that those who slept five hours or less were almost twice as likely to die prematurely from various causes, especially cardiovascular disease, than those who slept eight hours. One study suggests that sleep deprivation increases activity in the amygdala, an almond-shaped structure in the brain that regulates mood and anxiety.
The best time to sleep is at night. Night sleep causes a lower body temperature and a higher concentration of the "sleep hormone", melatonin. Scientists have been warning for several years that mobile phones and electronic devices in the bedroom disrupt sleep. One of the problems is that LED screens emit blue light that interferes with the production of melatonin in the brain. Therefore, scientists advise that we avoid electronic devices an hour before bedtime. Also, the bedroom should be cool and dark. Meditating before bed can also help people who have trouble falling asleep. If despite all this you can't fall asleep, get up and do something relaxing instead of trying to force yourself to sleep, scientists advise.
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