Do you sleep 6 - 8 hours a day ? In addition to physical activity ( exercise) and a good dietary lifestyle, sleeping 6 - 8 hours per night is an important component of a healthy lifestyle. Longer sleep is considered a healthy habit. I was used to only getting 5 hours or less night sleep from my medical school years and less when in residency training. Today I try to be in bed by 10:30 and sleep till 5:30 a.m. The Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that the optimal duration of sleep for adults is 7 hours per night.
It is not known whether excessive sleep duration or daytime napping expose individuals to a greater risk of death and cardiovascular disease
There are many complaints I hear in the office which are related. Daytime sleepiness and nocturia ( increased urination at night) are the most common complaints. There are studies that sleep greater than 10 hours had a relatively higher prevalence of CV risk factors and higher among those day time nappers. This only proves that we really don’t know the exact amount of hours one should sleep. These studies give us a better idea on the risk of CV mortality and morbidity.
From what I read I interpret this: ‘ Many sleep patterns may predispose to increased CV risk by different mechanisms that we fully do not understand at this point.’
Until tomorrow…