As the saying goes, "go to bed early and get up early, race over ginseng to replenish the body", but in real life, there are very few who really do it, and many people either stay up late, lose sleep until midnight, and are forced to get up early the next day; Either sleep until noon, eat lunch and go to sleep...
But sleeping more and sleeping less is unhealthy sleep, which may not only increase the risk of many diseases, but even reduce life. And there is a way to reduce the danger!
1
Sleep length is linked to health
Sleeping too much and sleeping less is harmful
According to a survey by the University of South Florida, 6 hours of sleep per night is the shortest amount of sleep to maintain optimal health for adults.
And if you sleep too much or too little for a long time, it will pose a threat to your health:
1Sleeping more and sleeping less increases the risk of death
◎ Sleep more: Researchers at the University of Manchester and other 4 universities in the United Kingdom, after following 74 research subjects over 11 years, showed that people who slept more than 9 hours a day on average had a 25% higher chance of death than others. Some analysts believe that this may be related to the body being in a "standby state" for too long, which is not conducive to the normal operation of the body and metabolism.
Sleep less: Research by Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, confirms that people who sleep only 5 hours a night have a 15 percent increased risk of death. One of the reasons is that staying up late causes the normal biorhythm of mitochondria to be disrupted, and the quality and quantity of mitochondria will decline accordingly.
2 Sleep more and sleep less, the risk of cardiovascular disease is increased
A study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that sleeping less than 6 hours increased the risk of myocardial infarction by 20% compared with people who slept 6~9 hours; And more than 9 hours increases the risk by 34%!
This may be because: lack of sleep may damage vascular endothelial cells and increase inflammation; Sleeping too much, blood flow is slow, easy to form blood clots, especially middle-aged and elderly people with underlying diseases such as three highs and coronary heart disease.
3 Sleeping more and sleeping less is not conducive to brain health
◎ Sleep more: According to the US "Science Daily" report: researchers have found that for the 60~70-year-old elderly, if the average sleep is more than 9 hours a day, the cognitive function of the brain is very easy to decline rapidly within 3 years, and its decline is significantly faster than that of people who sleep 6~8 hours a day, greatly increasing the risk of Alzheimer's.
Sleep less: A study published by Peking University in JAMA Network Open showed that too little sleep may increase the level of amyloid plaques and tau protein in cerebrospinal fluid, which is to increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease.
4. Sleep more and sleep less, it is easy to gain weight
◎ Sleep more: On the one hand, during sleep, people's metabolism slows down and energy consumption decreases; On the other hand, more sleep time, less time for activity, which will further affect calorie expenditure, resulting in excess calories converted into fat and accumulated in the body, causing obesity.
◎ Less sleep: Lack of sleep will reduce the basal metabolic rate, making excess calories easy to become fat accumulation in the body; It also increases ghrelin and reduces leptin secretion, thereby eating more and increasing the risk of obesity. A 2019 meta-analysis noted that for every 1 hour less sleep, the risk of obesity increased by 9%.
5 Sleep duration is also closely related to the risk of depression
Experts at the University of Washington Medical Sleep Center say too long or too short sleep may activate genes associated with depression.
A study of more than 1700 pairs of adult twins found that people who slept normally (7~9 hours per night) had a 27% probability of affecting depression-related genes. The probability of sleeping 5 hours a night and sleeping 10 hours a night was 53% and 49%, respectively.
【How long is the right amount of sleep each night?】 】
The American Sleep Foundation recommends that the best sleep time for adults is 7~9 hours; 7~8 hours for the elderly. You can make a reference, specifically to wake up and feel good about yourself.
2
New study: exercise appropriately
May reduce the harm of unhealthy sleep
Some people may ask: there will inevitably be such and such reasons in life, resulting in insufficient or excessive sleep, how to reduce the harm caused by unhealthy sleep?
A study published in the European Journal of Prophylaxis Cardiology found that increasing physical activity helped reduce the risk of death from short or long sleep duration, including all-cause, cardiovascular disease and cancer deaths.
1How does exercise reduce the harm of unhealthy sleep?
Researchers analyzed that physical activity may reduce the risk of unhealthy sleep-related death through different mechanisms, such as:
◎More physical activity can enhance cardiopulmonary function, inhibit inflammatory response, improve glucose metabolism, alleviate vascular endothelial dysfunction, and then reduce the risk of death caused by short sleep time.
◎ The effect of physical activity on the risk of death from long sleep periods may be related to increased physical activity and healthy sleep. However, the relevant mechanism has not been clarified, and more research and exploration are needed.
It is important to note that this study only showed an association between physical activity and sleep duration and the risk of death, not a causal relationship.
2. This amount of exercise is more appropriate
The World Health Organization recommends at least 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity per week, or at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity, or an equivalent combination of both.
3
People who sleep too little, wrong exercise can be fatal
This must be done in advance
Although exercise is good, if you sleep too little, you must not force it to exercise vigorously, otherwise it may cause life danger.
Case
In 2018, a 22-year-old man in Guangzhou, watching football all night for several days, because the team lost gambling to run in the park, on the way suddenly felt severe chest tightness, chest pain, nausea, sweating collapse, quickly went to the hospital emergency department, did not expect to just enter the hospital cardiac arrest, fortunately timely rescue, only to pick up a life.
1 Lack of sleep + strenuous exercise, the risk of sudden death is greatly increased
During sleep, the heart is generally at rest, and the heart rate is reduced by 10~20 times per minute compared with the day, so as to help relieve daytime fatigue and improve the heart's own functional state. And too little sleep, the heart can not rest well, cardiomyocytes will become fragile, can not do "heavy work".
When the body fatigues to a certain extent, it will also secrete a large amount of adrenaline and norepinephrine, etc., which can make the vasospasm, increase blood pressure, reduce the local blood supply to the heart, easily lead to accelerated heart rate, irregular heartbeat, and even induce terrible sudden cardiac death.
If you still exercise vigorously at this time, the sympathetic nerve is excited, stimulating the heart to contract and relax strongly, which is equivalent to increasing the workload of the heart, making the heart "accumulate and burden", which may cause a sudden increase in blood pressure, cardiac hypoxia, and further increase the risk of sudden cardiac death.
Especially for patients with vascular plaques, during strenuous exercise, the shear force of blood flow may cause endothelial damage, and can also make the plaque become unstable, fall and rupture, resulting in platelet aggregation to block blood vessels and induce myocardial infarction.
2 People who sleep too little, must rest fully before exercise
In the case of serious lack of sleep, the first thing to do is to rest well, you can make up for the sleep time by going to bed early at night + taking a proper nap, so that the body can maintain a better state, and then gradually exercise to reduce health risks.
All in all, moderate exercise can reduce the harm of unhealthy sleep, but if you don't get enough sleep, you must rest enough and exercise when your body is in good condition, and pay attention to gradual and do what you can.
(I'm a big doctor)