How sleep can save your life - London Independent
The latest research shows that longer nights mean a
leaner body, a fitter heart and a healthier mind. Kate Hilpern finds
some good reasons to turn in early
Tuesday, 4 October 2011
Sleeping well is vital for physical, mental and
emotional health. But there has been a gradual reduction in the average
amount of sleep people take, with research showing that at any one time,
one person in five feels unusually tired and one in ten has prolonged
fatigue.
"Sleep is nature's way of providing us with rest, recovery and energy.
There is nothing else that does the same thing," says Professor Colin
Espie, director of Glasgow University's sleep centre. "But too many of
us treat sleep like a commodity. We disrespect it – even treat it as a
nuisance that gets in the way of waking hours." Others are victims of
sleep conditions such as insomnia. Having a good night's sleep has never
been more important.
Heart benefits
If you sleep less than six hours a night and have disturbed sleep, you stand a
48 per cent greater chance of developing or dying from heart disease and a
15 per cent greater chance of developing or dying from a stroke, according
to a study from the University of Warwick. "The trend for late nights
and early mornings is actually a ticking time bomb for our health, so you
need to act now to reduce your risk of developing these life-threatening
conditions," says co-author Professor Francesco Cappuccio.
Men over 65 who spend little time in deep sleep are at particularly high risk
of developing high blood pressure, according to new research from Harvard
Medical School. The study of 784 patients, published in the journal
Hypertension, found that those getting the least deep sleep were at 83 per
cent greater risk than those getting the most. High blood pressure increases
the risk of heart attack, stroke and other health problems.
Lack of sleep causes stress on the body, causing the heart to beat faster,
experts explain. Getting too much sleep – more than nine hours at a stretch
– may be an indicator of illness, including cardiovascular disease, they add.
Weight control
Managing sleep levels could help in the battle against obesity. One study of
472 obese people, published in the International Journal of Obesity,
involved participants eating 500 fewer calories per day, along with exercise
most days. Those getting too little or too much sleep were less likely to
have lost weight over the six-month period.
"Studies consistently show that the less sleep people have, the greater
their chances of obesity," confirms Dr David Haslam, chair of the
National Obesity Forum. "People think sleep is just sedentary, so it
can't possibly help you lose weight, but lack of it mucks up our appetite
hormones."
Dr John Shneerson, president of the British Sleep Society and consultant
physician at Papworth Hospital's sleep centre, explains: "Our ordinary
fat cells produce a hormone called leptin, whose job it is to switch off our
appetite to help us maintain the right weight. Sleep deprivation reduces our
leptin level, leaving us with a greater appetite. Our stomach and intestine
produces another hormone called ghrelin, whose aim it is to increase our
appetite when required. Sleep deprivation causes an increase of this
hormone. The combination of the decrease in leptin and increase in ghrelin
makes us eat more.
"Also, sleep deprivation puts increased stress on your body, making us
produce more steroids from our adrenal glands, causing us to retain more fat
in our body. The result of all these things is that no matter how hard
people try to lose weight, they will have an uphill battle if they don't get
a good night's sleep."
Mental Health
Most of us know that in the short term, poor sleep makes us weary, apathetic,
forgetful and irritable. But in the longer term, it is linked to impaired
performance, job problems, mood disorders and mental health problems,
notably depression. So strong is this relationship that earlier this year,
the Mental Health Foundation launched a campaign to highlight the importance
of sleep in maintaining mental health.
"Lack of sleep needs to be treated as a major health issue," says Dr
Dan Robotham, senior researcher at the Mental Health Foundation. "We
are all au fait with the importance of diet and exercise, but sleep is often
ignored."
Their report, "Sleep Matters", which was carried out with Glasgow
University's sleep centre, found that people with insomnia were four times
as likely to have relationship problems, three times as likely to feel
depressed and three times as likely to suffer from a lack of concentration. "People
can get stuck in a spiral where poor sleep leads to mental health problems,
which leads to even worse sleep," says Dr Dan Robotham,of the Mental
Health Foundation, lead author of the report.
Poor sleep can even lead to suicide. The University of Michigan found that
people with two or more symptoms of insomnia were 2.6 times more likely to
report a suicide attempt. Meanwhile, Columbia University Medical Centre in
New York found that 12 to 18-year-olds who went to bed after midnight were
20 per cent more likely to think about suicide than those whose bedtime was
10pm or earlier, while those who had less than five hours sleep a night had
a 48 per cent higher risk of suicidal thoughts compared with those who had
eight hours of sleep.
Longevity
"Study after study shows that if you randomly select individuals, those
that sleep around the seven hour mark live longer than those who sleep much
shorter or longer," says Professor Kevin Morgan, from Loughborough
University's sleep research unit.
One review of 16 studies from the UK, US, and European and East Asian
countries, found that people regularly having less than six hours sleep were
12 per cent more likely to die over a 25-year period than those who got an "ideal"
six to eight hours.
While a lack of sleep may be a direct cause of ill health, too much sleep may
merely be a marker of ill health already, the researchers concluded,
although Professor Morgan is less sure. "Sleep is a form of sedentary
behaviour, so if you're spending nine to 10 hours inactive, it compromises
your cardiovascular fitness. That alone can lead to a whole set of health
problems."
Immune system
"Some of the earliest studies looking at sleep deprivation involved
torturing rats to death by keeping them sleep deprived," says Professor
Morgan. "What was overwhelmingly clear when they were dissected is that
they were immunocompromised. Recent studies on humans have shown that people
who work night shifts are immunocompromised. It's not that night shifts are
bad for you – although they're not good for you – but more that night
workers often manage their sleep timing badly."
Diabetes
Type 2 diabetes develops when the body makes too much insulin, but does not
use the hormone efficiently to break down sugar in the blood. A stepping
stone to the condition, known as "impaired fasting glucose",
occurs when blood sugar levels are too high, but not high enough to
constitute a diagnosis of diabetes. Researchers from the University of
Buffalo in New York, found that those who slept on average for fewer than
six hours a night during the working week were 4.56 times more likely to
develop impaired fasting glucose than those sleeping six to eight hours a
night.
How to sleep well
* Going to bed and getting up at roughly the same time programmes your body to
sleep better.
* A clutter-free bedroom – certainly no television or computers – is essential
for rest.
* Exercise helps give us restful nights, but it has the opposite effect if
done near bedtime – except for sex, which is actually conducive to sleep.
* Aim to sleep for seven to eight hours. Some people need less or more, but
it's only a minority.
* If your mattress is more than a decade old, replace it as the quality will
have deteriorated by about 75 per cent and this could seriously affect your
sleep.
* Splash out on comfort. An exceptional pillow, such as the Winter Snow Goose
Pillow from John Lewis, will help with posture, which in turn promotes good
sleep. Meanwhile, silk sheets, such as those by Gingerlily, help regulate
body temperature, preventing regular waking.
