Proper amount of sleep may bring blood pressure levels down

With the recent release of my book The Blood Pressure Miracle in stores across the country and the amount of work I’ve done recently to promote it, my attention is immediately grabbed whenever I see a headline that links anything to high blood pressure.  And so it was when I read this recent report that links sleep to high blood pressure.

Lacking a good night’s sleep can sometimes be attributed to the person; in other words, the person is not getting enough sleep simply because he or she isn’t biding their time well and chooses to stay out late or stay up late.  But for others, like the 70 million Americans who are affected by a chronic sleep disorder, it’s an unfortunate part of their reality that they must cope with night in, night out.

While tossing and turning is certainly inconvenient and frustrating, leaving people cranky and testy the next morning, it frustrates blood pressure levels as well, according to a new study that investigated the links between high blood pressure and sleep.

The study involved approximately 600 middle-aged adults of varying ethnicity and gender and was spread out over a five-year period.  The University of Chicago researchers tracked these men and women over the years, noting the average amount of sleep they got each night and keeping track of their blood pressure levels throughout the process.

The results?  Pretty galling.

I say “galling” because we all know that we ought to be getting seven to eight hours of sleep a night, the eighth hour being the most important hour for proper thinking and memory function.  We know this, yet only one percent – one percent! – got the recommended eight hours of sleep.  The majority of those involved in the study got around six hours of sleep a night (which is estimated to be the average amount the average American gets).

And as the researchers showed in their study, there was something of an inverse relationship between the hours slept and whether that person developed high blood pressure.  For instance, when researchers compared people who got six hours of sleep with those who got an average of five hours of sleep, the five-hour folk increased their risk of hypertension development by 37 percent!  One hour difference had that big of an impact!

The researchers say that more studies need to be done before it can be said with any definitiveness that more sleep can bring blood pressure levels down, as there are lots of variables that go into high blood pressure development (e.g. diet, exercise, ethnicity, family history, etc.).

In times like these, it can be just plain hard to sleep, even if you don’t have a sleep disorder.  In a poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation, one-third of Americans lose sleep every night because of the country’s current economic situation.

Thinking about anything distressing is a nightmare for sleep.  Do your best to put all distressing thoughts out of your mind when your head hits the pillow by thinking “happy thoughts,” like lying out on the beach, or a particularly pleasant past experience.  Here are three other tips to follow, as suggested by National Sleep Foundation:

• Exercise, but don’t exercise too close to bedtime.  Exercise tires the body physically (conducive to sleep) but it revs up the brain (not conducive to sleep).

• Caffeine’s fine to drink in moderation, but not around bedtime.  Not even a little.  Put the lid on caffeine at dinnertime; keep it limited to a morning cup or in your afternoon brew.

• Just as a handyman can’t function without his tool belt, Mr.  Sandman can’t be summoned without a quality bed.  Your sleeplessness may be a function of improper “tools.”  Try out a new mattress.

Sources:
msnbc.msn.com
sleepfoundation.org

Lack of sleep can endanger your health, including increased diabetes risk.

It sounds like a study straight out of the timeless nursery rhyme Goldilocks and the Three Bears, where the porridge can’t be too hot or cold, the chair can’t be too big or small and the bed can’t be too spacious or cramped.  It has to be “just right,” or the results can be devastating for your health.

What am I talking about?  Sleep.  How too little or too much of it increases the chances of developing type II diabetes, this according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Copenhagen.

Sleep is one of those mysterious things in life that we all know we need, but no one really knows why.  Without it, the effects are quite apparent—we don’t perform at our jobs as effectively, our personalities are affected negatively (crabbiness, short-temperedness) and we increase our risk of developing life’s nuisances, like colds, or plagues like expedited aging.

So I suppose it comes as no surprise that sleep also impacts whether one develops diabetes – after all, it seems to impact every other aspect of life.

Before coming to their conclusions, the Danish researchers made sure to take into account contributing factors for developing diabetes, as it’s often predicated on one’s ethnicity, family background, weight and age.  Once those things were given their due attention, they arrived at some fascinating results.

After tracking the sleep pattern behaviors of approximately 280 participants in their study over a six-year period, they found that those who slept more than what was considered “average” were 20 percent more likely to have developed diabetes.  The same percentage was found among those who slept below the “average” amount of time.

What did the researchers classify as “average”?  You guessed it—between seven and eight hours of sleep per night.

This isn’t to say that those who slept the average amount of time didn’t get diabetes, but their rate of developing diabetes was significantly lower, about 7 percent overall.

Despite all the data and the importance placed on sleep in the media and elsewhere, many of us consider it to be something of an afterthought.  After all, with only 24 hours in which to perform our daily tasks, who has time to sleep?  I know I often fall into this line of thinking.

It’s a flawed line of thinking, though.  Study after study shows just how important sleep is, but most of us don’t need to see a study to appreciate sleep’s importance.  We can feel it and we can see it in our diminished performance at work, at home, or at the gym.

To get more sleep, you really need to commit to a routine.  The body enjoys routine, particularly when it comes to quality shuteye.  If you can, try to go to bed at the same time every night and wake up at the same time every morning.  Use your bed for its purpose – sleep – not as a couch for television watching or as a La-Z Boy for snacking.  And don’t underestimate the power of sound when sleeping.  Small things can improve or disturb one’s ability to sleep, like the television (disturb) or, as my mom used to call it, “the sounds of the night” (improve).  Find a noise that’s comforting while sleeping, like the chirping of the peepers if you live in a more rural area, or the pitter-patter of rain if you live in the often rain-soaked Northwest.

Sleep could very well prevent a life spent pricking your finger to test your blood sugar.  But as it pertains to life in general and how the lack of it often causes lashing out at those around us, sleep can prevent us from being hostile to others, not to mention our long term health.

Source:
Science Daily