The Benefits of Sleep for People with Chronic Diseases: An Empirical Study of a Large-Scale Population in the United States

Other research has shown that adults who do not get enough sleep – about seven to nine hours a night – have a greater chance of developing chronic diseases that also include obesity and high blood pressure, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The diseases with a higher risk were Diabetes, cancer, coronary heart disease, stroke, heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Chronic kidneys disease, depression, dementia, mental disorders, Parkinson’s and arthritis.

The study has some additional limitations. White men were the majority, while only a third of the subjects were women. The civil servants are also less sickly than the general population, according to the researchers. And the study relied on self-reported data, which is considered less reliable than if people were in a sleep study in which scientists could directly observe how the person was sleeping.

There is more evidence that sleep and chronic conditions are related, and it is important because Sharon was not involved with the new study.

Adam Knowlden, an associate professor of health sciences at the University of Alabama, said that there has been other research showing the benefits of sleep and its function in the body.

Hormones regulate things like appetite, metabolism, sex drive, blood pressure and heart rate, body temperature, and circadian rhythms. If the body doesn’t produce adequate hormones due to a lack of sleep, that is thought to lead to chronic health problems in addition to things like fatigue, body aches and problems with blood pressure.

First, establish a consistent sleep schedule. Getting a regular night’s rest is easier if you get up and go to bed at the same time every day.

The CDC warns that poor sleep habits are ubiquitous in the U.S.: Eight strategies to prevent heart disease and improve the quality of sleep

Heart disease is the No. 1 killer in the country, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Someone in the US dies from cardiovascular disease every 34 seconds.

The eight items: Quit tobacco, eat better, get active, manage weight, manage blood pressure, control cholesterol, reduce blood sugar and get healthy sleep.

They took part in sleep research. They filled out sleep surveys, wore a device that measured their sleep for seven days and did an overnight study in which scientists could observe the way they slept.

Poor sleep habits “are ubiquitous” among Americans, the study says, including among the study participants. About 63% of them were found to sleep less than seven hours a night, and 30% slept less than six hours. According to the CDC, an adult’s ideal sleep duration is seven to nine hours a night.

There’s increasing evidence that people who don’t sleep enough often have a poor diet, Makarem said. It’s possible that sleep is a part of the reason why, since it regulates hormones that can make you feel full or hungry. When those hormones get out of whack, you may end up eating more and seeking out calorie-rich foods that give you quick energy.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/19/health/sleep-heart-health-wellness/index.html

Why should we worry? Dr. Prather’s advice to take some time to stop worrying about our worries if you can’t sleep

She wants more studies to prove a connection between good health and good sleep to make more providers ask questions.

Some people might reach for a supplement or sleep aid. A 2013 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey found that one in eight adults with trouble sleeping reported using sleep aids. There are simple steps we can take throughout the day and night to get better rest which will be detailed in a book by Dr. Prather. “It’s not something you do,” he added. It is something that comes to you.

Dr. Prather said that people don’t say they were awake in the middle of the night and only focused on good things. Our thoughts can get loud at night when we try to let our brains rest without distraction, Dr. Prather wrote.

Prather recommended in an interview to take some time to worry. Write down what scares you and think about it without trying to find a solution. If you do that consistently, he said, your worries won’t seep into the night — and if they do, you can remind yourself that you have a dedicated time to address them the next day.

However, sleep has recently become yet another aspect of our lives that causes endless worry, rather than being enjoyable. We have become fixated on getting the perfect night’s sleep. Many of us have been affected by sleep anxiety, a condition in which we worry about not falling asleep or staying asleep. A study has shown that anxiety caused by increased stress is linked to poorer sleep.

We need to be aware that we need to avoid light from screens before sleep. Individuals were exposed to four hours of use of the device on its bright light setting before they could sleep on five nights in a row. By two minutes a day, the sleep start time was delayed. Although the results were statistically significant, the biological impact was essentially meaningless.

On the other hand, a raft of recent studies in the field of circadian neuroscience increasingly presents an alternative perspective: Rather than being one-size-fits-all, healthy sleep patterns are based on our individual needs. This was shown very clearly, for instance, in a recent study that my group at Oxford University conducted with a cohort of adolescents between the ages of 14 and 15. The average level of insomnia in that group was normal and we gave participants cognitive behavior therapy to reduce stress and improve their sleep. On average, this intervention had no impact. The group that had insomnia had a 20% increase in insomnia, and CBTi substantially improved their sleep. That insight would have been completely missed had we only analyzed the average data.