This common bedtime habit is terrible for your heart
According to a new study, your bedtime may matter as much as how long you sleep. Especially if you’re already running on less than a full night’s rest.
Researchers from the University of Oulu, who have previously found a way to observe the natural cleansing processes our brains go through while we sleep, tracked the sleep habits of 3,231 adults using wearable devices. They focused on the duration and consistency of our nocturnal shut eye. The team found that people with irregular bedtimes had about twice the risk of major cardiovascular events such as seizures and strokes over the following decade compared to those who went to bed at consistent times. They published their findings in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders.
In a press release published on the university’s website, lead researcher Laura Nauha said the likely bad guy here is our circadian rhythm. The body runs on a 24-hour internal clock. When you constantly change your bedtime, you’re basically resetting that clock every night in a way that irritates your heart, which depends on a predictable block of downtime to recover from a long day of staying alive. When you remove that consistency, the system starts to strain.
This daily bedtime habit could destroy your heart
Wake times did not show the same effect. The most important thing is bedtime. In the study, irregular sleepers averaged nearly 2 hours of bedtime variation over a week, compared to about half an hour for consistent sleepers.
Overall, the increased risk was primarily seen in people who slept less than eight hours a night. Anyone who managed a full night’s sleep seems to have somewhat more protection, even if their schedules weren’t so great. In other words, the amount of sleep may make some of the difference and protect against potentially fatal heart disease in the future, but not forever.
As with any study, there were of course some limitations. The study does not claim direct causation and fully acknowledges that there are a wide range of factors that also contribute to heart disease and stroke alongside a regular bedtime, such as stress, work schedules and underlying health issues. But the association is strong enough to be significant given that cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death on the planet.
Out of more than 3,000 participants, 128 experienced serious cardiac events over 10 years – a relatively small number, but enough to help the researchers identify a pattern. Because as much as we all worry about getting those precious 8+ hours of sleep, we might forget to supplement it with a little bit of good bedtime; otherwise, we’re just unconsciously making things a little worse for ourselves in the long run.
