This Much Is How Much You Need To Sleep For Optimal Heart Health… Author: Vanes…

This Much Is How Much You Need To Sleep For Optimal Heart Health…

Author: Vanessa Phillips

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?” ~ Ernest Hemingway

Consider sleep for a moment.
What is the greatest influence it has on you?
Many of us would reply by acknowledging sleep’s influence on productivity, fatigue and our ability to make decisions.

But few understand how significant it’s influence really is – that it regulates your blood sugar levels, keeps inflammation at bay and how it impacts your body’s ability to heal and repair your cells.

The truth is, sleep is so much more than rest.
And there’s new evidence to suggest that a narrow margin, relating to sleep duration, has a significant impact on your heart health.

Short sleepers and long sleepers
Too much or too little sleep should be avoided if you want to keep your heart healthy, suggests Dr Epameinondas Fountas, of the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre in Athens, Greece.

At the recent European Society of Cardiology Congress that was held in Munich, Germany, he presented evidence to support the need for quite a specific number of hours of sleep per night, for optimal heart health.

Research shows that those who frequently sleep less than 6 hours have an 11 per cent higher risk of developing or dying from coronary artery disease or stroke.

Sleeping more than 8 raises that risk to 33 per cent.
Dr Fountas says that the “odd short night or lie-in” shouldn’t have a significant effect on risk; it’s those prolonged periods of sleep deprivation or accumulation that should be your biggest worry.

While you may ‘feel’ like you thrive on less sleep, or that your serenity only comes after you’ve been asleep for an extended length of time, but your heart dictates the true consequences of your sleeping patterns.

6-8 hours of sleep is what you heart needs
You don’t have to aim for the typically recommended 8 hours of sleep a night, but less than 6 is simply too little and more than 9, too much.

As with anything, habits can be changed, and after only a few nights of adjusting your sleeping patterns, your body will rebalance and settle in to the new norm.

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