It is often asked, what is the difference between a person who goes to bed on time every day and a person who often stays up late to sleep? For example, if two colleagues in the same company unit go to bed on time every day, and one person stays up late every day to sleep, it seems that there is no difference between the two of them when they arrive at the company the next day.
If it is 1 day or 2 days, the difference may not be obvious, but if it is 5 years, the difference may be surprising!
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Those who sleep well and those who stay up late to sleep,
What's the difference after 5 years?
In April 2024, JAMA Network Open, a sub-journal of the Journal of the American Medical Association, published a sleep study that found that a person who sleeps well and a person who sleeps late will have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, especially coronary heart disease and stroke, after 5 years!
The study, conducted in Shiyan, Hubei province, on the mainland, recruited 27,000 retired workers from September 2008 to June 2010. The researchers formulated a low-risk sleep factor with a score of 1 if you can do it and a score of 0 if you can't:
1. Bedtime is 22:01-24:00
2. Sleep 7-8 hours per night
3. Good or average sleep quality
4. Lunch break ≤ 60 minutes
A total score of ≤2 is considered poor sleep, and a sleep score of ≥3 is considered good sleep. After a mean follow-up of 4.9 years, a total of 3669 cardiovascular disease occurrences were recorded, including 2,986 cases of coronary heart disease and 683 cases of stroke.
The final study analysis showed that people with consistently good sleep patterns had a 16% lower risk of coronary heart disease and a 34% lower risk of stroke compared to those who had persistent poor sleep patterns. ①
In other words: a person who sleeps well has a significantly lower risk of cardiovascular disease, coronary heart disease and stroke after 5 years than a person who sleeps late. So, it shows how important a good night's sleep is to a person's health!
Sleep well, it's not difficult to do these 4 points!
1. Fall asleep: 22~23 o'clock is the best time to fall asleep
Although studies have formulated bedtime from 22:01 to 24:00 as a low-risk sleep factor, some studies have found that 22~23 o'clock is the best time to fall asleep.
In 2021, a study published in the European Heart Journal Digital Health, a sub-journal of the European Society of Cardiology, showed that the best time to fall asleep is between 22:00 and 22:59 at night. Because falling asleep during this time reduces the risk of heart disease, people who fall asleep in the middle of the night or later have the highest risk of heart disease. ②
Screenshot of the study, translated by Health Times
Specifically, those who fell asleep between 23:00 and 23:59 at night had a 12% higher risk of cardiovascular disease and those who fell asleep at 0:00 a.m. or later had a 25% higher risk of vascular disease compared to falling asleep at 22:00 to 22:59.
2. Get enough sleep: 7-8 hours is the best amount of sleep
About 1/3 of our lives are spent sleeping. In March 2024, researchers from Tsinghua University published a study on sleep in the journal "Scientific Reports", showing that 7 hours of sleep prolongs life, and too long or too short a sleep time will promote the biological aging of the body. The Healthy China Action recommends that adults sleep an average of 7-8 hours a day. ③
Screenshot of the study, translated by Health Times
3. Sleep quality: 5 ways to improve sleep quality
(1) Maintain a suitable bedroom temperature. Temperature also has a big impact on sleep, such as room temperature that is too cold or too hot can affect falling asleep and sleeping. The best room temperature for sleep is around 20°C, and if you think about the hot days in the summer, it will be difficult for you to fall asleep.
(2) Ensure a dark environment. To create a bedroom suitable for sleeping, the environment is quiet and dark, and the room temperature is about 20°C, be sure to use blackout curtains.
(3) Try to choose daytime exercise. Exercising during the day increases the body's fatigue and thus improves sleep. Doing a lot of exercise at night will make the brain overexcited, such as secreting related hormones, so being too excited will affect falling asleep.
(4) Do something relaxing before bed. The thing to relax is not to play games or swipe your phone. We can take a hot bath, read some relaxing books, do a simple stretch, or listen to white noises (wind, rain, running water, waves) and so on. It can be difficult to get used to at first, but as you get acquainted, your body will feel relaxed and happy.
(5) Maintain a regular sleep habit. Many people will not go to bed at a fixed time due to work or personal habits, and over time, the biological clock will be disordered, the work and rest will be irregular, and the quality of sleep will be reduced. Set a time to go to bed, and you will feel very limited at first, but you will definitely reap the huge health rewards later.
4. Take a nap: The best nap is 15-30 minutes
If you have the habit of keeping naps in place, it is indeed healthier. A growing body of research confirms that napping plays a very important role in relieving brain fatigue, reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, relieving fatigue, and improving mood. But don't take a nap for too long, there is an optimal length of time.
Photo by Health Times Mao Yuanyuan
A 2023 study published in the journal Obesity found that people who napped for more than 30 minutes were associated with a 41% increased risk of high BMI and metabolic syndrome, especially in terms of waist circumference, fasting blood sugar and blood pressure, compared to those who did not nap. People who took naps for less than 30 minutes had no metabolic health risks and performed better in terms of blood pressure. ④
In general, a 15-30 minute nap is better. If the time is exceeded, it is easy to feel uncomfortable such as "I can't open my eyes", "I still want to sleep", "I don't want to move", "My brain is cloudy", etc.
From the Health Times