If you're not getting enough sleep during the week, you may be setting yourself up for heart disease in the future, and trying to catch up over the weekend won't protect you, according to a new study. Researchers say key heart health factors like blood pressure may take a hit after numerous successive nights of sleep loss.
They conducted an in-person sleep study including 15 healthy men, 20 to 35 years of age. The participants were allowed three nights of up to 10 hours of sleep per night, followed by five nights of 5 hours and two recovery nights of extended sleep. During the study, the participants' resting heart rates and blood pressure were tracked every 2 hours, and the results showed both of these key indicators increased each successive day and did not return to baseline levels by the end of the recovery period.
For example, the average heart rate at the start was 69 beats per minute, but by the end of the sleep study, it was nearly 78, and systolic blood pressure rose from an average of 116 to nearly 120. The researchers say longer periods of recovery sleep may be needed to heal from multiple consecutive nights of bad sleep. One author says not only does sleep affect our cardiovascular health, but it also affects our weight, our mental health, our ability to focus, and our ability to maintain healthy relationships with others, among many other things.
