Hours of sleep per night

An overcaffeinated America seems to perpetually crave more shut-eye. And evidence is cropping up to suggest that a poor night's sleep is not only felt the next day but could have implications for one's heart over the long term. It is well established that sleep apnea, which results in numerous interruptions to breathing while asleep, is associated with stroke and coronary artery disease.

The reason is not clear, says Whiteson, but it's been hypothesized that people with disrupted sleep breathing have higher blood pressure overall because they don't get the restorative sleep that normally allows blood pressure to go down and gives the cardiovascular system a break during slumber. And a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that middle-aged people who got five hours of shut-eye or less a night had a greater risk of developing coronary artery disease than those who got eight hours. The clue was the beginnings of calcium buildup in their arteries, found by CT scanning long before the disease process would normally be picked up.

Bottom line: Get eight hours of sleep per night. Making it happen isn't easy, we know.


(credits to YahooNews)