Mastering these five sleep habits reduces your risk of death by 30%, according to the Harvard study
Mastering five key sleep habits can reduce your risk of death by 30 percent, according to a study.
Harvard University researchers claim they have conducted one of the most comprehensive sleep research studies to date.
They say that while previous research has looked at sleep duration, other bedtime behaviors have been neglected.
Using their new Five Rules method, the researchers estimate that 8 percent of all deaths from any cause in the US can be attributed to poor sleep patterns.
The Harvard researchers found that people who met all five criteria were 30 percent less likely to die from any cause than those who met none or one of the sleep habits
The five components are: sleeping seven to eight hours a night, having trouble falling asleep two nights a week or less, having trouble staying asleep twice a week at most, not taking sleeping pills, and waking up feeling rested at least five days a week.
Nearly a third of US adults routinely fail to get the minimum of seven hours of sleep a night recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Sleep is an important rest period for the brain and body to recover and repair, and those who don’t get enough or wake up repeatedly may be at higher risk for a variety of diseases, including coronary artery disease and cancer.
It’s the first time a nationally representative sample has been used to examine how sleep habits in general, and not just sleep duration, might affect life expectancy, the study authors claimed.
Researchers at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at Harvard in Boston looked at data from 172,321 people between 2013 and 2018.
The data comes from people who took part in the National Health Interview Survey, an annual general health survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Center for Health Statistics that includes questions about sleep.
The research team linked the data to records from the National Death Index to examine the link between people’s sleep factors and the cause of death.
The five sleep habits to reduce your risk of death by 30 percent
They examined five different indicators of sleep quality: ideal sleep duration of seven to eight hours per night; difficulty falling asleep no more than twice a week; sleep disturbances no more than twice a week; do not use sleeping pills; and wake up feeling rested at least five days a week.
Participants received a score of zero or one for each criterion, depending on whether they met it, with a maximum of five points.
Factors that may have increased people’s likelihood of dying were controlled for, such as lower socioeconomic status, smoking and alcohol consumption, and other medical conditions.
Those who met all five criteria were 30 percent less likely to die from any cause than those who met none or one of the sleep habits.
The top sleepers were 21 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 19 percent less likely to die from cancer.
They were also 40 percent less likely to die from causes other than heart disease or cancer.
dr Frank Qian, a physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and co-author of the study, said these other causes are likely accidents, infections, or neurodegenerative diseases, including dementia and Parkinson’s, but added that more research is needed.
The limitations of the study included the fact that the sleeping habits were self-reported.
Also, no information was available about what sleeping pills the patients were taking or for how long.
Full results will be presented March 4-6 in New Orleans at the American College of Cardiology-World Heart Federation joint conference.