In today’s busy world, people have started ignoring sleep. Yet sleep plays a significant role in maintaining both your physical and mental health. Recent studies have shown that insufficient and untimely sleep can lead to heart attacks. Lack of proper sleep is directly related to many cardiovascular diseases. Insufficient sleep for prolonged periods can lead to hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, and even premature death.
Go through this blog to learn about how sleep duration can lead to a heart attack and other heart-related issues. Follow the suggestions for maintaining a healthy heart.
What’s the right amount of sleep per day? What do the studies say?
Maintaining a sleep schedule of 8 hours will keep your mind and body healthy. Having sufficient sleep relaxes your mind, helps in improving concentration, and provides you with mental peace. 7 to 9 hours of sleep is needed for adults for a healthy heart. If your sleeping hours are less than 6 hours, it can lead to several health issues. But don’t exceed the sleeping time of more than 9 hours. It can be harmful to your body, too.
Every third adult in the US lacks sufficient sleep. As per recent surveys, people in the US are sleeping less than the required hours of sleep. Fewer sleeping hours are directly linked to health issues and affect your overall performance.
Even if you are healthy, studies tell you that having less than 6 hours of sleep per more than 9 hours of sleep can directly affect your heart health. It can lead to several heart-related diseases.
According to the 2019 studies, even a person with a genetic disposition can reduce heart-related diseases by maintaining a proper sleep schedule. Sufficient sleep of about 8 hours can even reduce the risk of heart disease coming from the genetics of your family.
Experts have suggested that having too long a sleep or too little sleep triggers heart disease and leads to heart attacks. Even if you have a proper diet and workout sessions, sufficient sleep is very important for a healthy heart.
What are the possible health risks associated with insufficient sleep?
Sleeping less than 6 hours can lead to several health issues –
- Continuous sleep reduction can cause heart-related diseases and increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. By not having sufficient sleep, there can be an increase of 20% risk of heart-related diseases.
- Lack of sleep can affect your blood pressure. When you get a deep sleep, your blood pressure level naturally decreases due to the phenomenon of nocturnal dipping. This process reduces your stress and calms down your mind. In case you are not having proper sleep, this process slows down, resulting in high blood pressure. This may also lead to cardiovascular diseases.
- Sleep reduction leads to inflammation. Fewer sleeping hours impact the hormonal health of the body. Your natural metabolism rate slows down. As a result, you can find inflammation in various body parts. This might lead to weight gain and increased blood sugar levels, which may cause inflammation in various body parts.
- Atherosclerosis, Heart Failure, and Irregular Heart Rhythms are also the outcomes of insufficient sleep.
Sufficient Sleep can reduce the chance of getting a Heart Attack
As per the studies of 2018, people in the US have suffered from heart-related diseases. About 60,000 adults who lacked sufficient sleeping hours were reported to have coronary heart-related issues. Insufficient sleep or not-so-deep sleep can increase the risk of heart stroke and other diseases.
Reports have found that people among these 60,000 heart patients who sleep more than 8 hours a day have recovered faster. This risk of harmful heart diseases has been reduced in these individuals.
An analysis of 5 million people has reported that people with long sleeping hours also have the possible risks of getting coronary heart-related diseases and premature deaths. So, neither too much nor too little sleep is advisable. Excessive sleep duration can have adverse impacts on your health.
Apart from sufficient sleep, quality sleep also plays a major role. Having a deep sleep can reduce the risk of coronary diseases. Nocturnal dipping is a natural process that slows down the blood pressure level and calms your mind. This can be done naturally if you ensure a deep sleep every night. It calms your body and protects your heart health.
Older adults with quality and sufficient sleeping hours can reduce about 16 % of coronary heart diseases. And 34% of heart stroke risks can also be reduced by maintaining a sufficient and proper sleep schedule.
All these studies have found that both sufficient sleep and quality sleep are required for maintaining heart health. By maintaining this, you can get a healthy heart with a low risk of getting cardiovascular disease.
| Sleep Factor | Effects on Heart Health |
| 7 to 8 hours of sleep | Lowest Risk of cardiovascular diseases |
| Having Less than 6 hours of sleep per night | 20% higher risk because of short sleep |
| More than 9 hours of sleep | 34% of higher risk because of too long a sleep |
| Good Sleep Quality | 16 to 34 % lower risk of cardiovascular disease and strokes. |
The Genetic Risk of Heart Disease can be reduced by Proper Sleep
Researchers have found that by maintaining Healthy sleep patterns, the risk of heart disease due to genetic factors can also be reduced by maintaining a proper sleep schedule.
Yes, sleep can help protect people with a genetic risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases. You can avoid these diseases by following an unhealthy sleep schedule, even if it isn’t genetically predisposed.
Insufficient sleep leads to the following conditions:
- Unnecessary irritation
- Lack of focus
- Anxiety
- Feeling of depression
These factors can cause hypertension. High blood pressure is not good for your heart health and can cause harmful effects.
These factors lead to an increase in blood pressure and cause heart disease. The European Journal claimed that people with genetic factors associated with heart disease have reduced their risk by maintaining a proper sleep schedule. A healthy sleep pattern and regular sleeping hours of 8 to 9 hours cannot eliminate the risk, but reduce the risk to a great extent.
What are the tips for having proper sleep and heart health?
You can improve your sleeping patterns. This will benefit your heart health as well as improve your overall performance. Follow the mentioned tips to get amazing results:
- Make a schedule and stick to it. Go to bed around 9 pm and wake up at a particular time regularly. Even when it is your rest day, weekends, or holidays, maintain your sleep pattern.
- Create a nice environment for resting. Keep your bedroom cool, dark, and quiet. Use a comfortable bed and pillows.
- Avoid excessive use of electronic devices like laptops, TVs, Macs, or phones. The blue light affects sleep. Reduce your screen time. And avoid any kind of screen time before 2 hours of sleep.
- Do not overeat at night. Avoid taking heavy foods that make you feel bloated and interfere with your sleep. Consuming caffeine or alcohol can affect your sleep.
- Increase physical activities, workouts, walking, or running daily. This will make your body tired and help you to have a good sleep at night. But do not practice intense exercises before bedtime.
- Stress management is very important for good sleep and heart health. You may practice meditation, yoga, or deep breathing.
- In case you have any sleeping disorders, you must consult a doctor. Habits like loud snoring, gasping for air during sleep, or excessive tiredness are not good for your health. These habits must be changed as they can lead to sleep apnea.
A proper sleep is very important for maintaining heart health. Excessive sleep as well as insufficient sleep are not good for health. Both increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. For a healthy body and a healthy mind, sufficient sleep plays a vital role.