These 5 Sleep Habits May Reduce Your Risk of Heart Disease, New Study Shows

Getting a good night's sleep helps you wake up feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day. But quality rest is important for your overall heart health and longevity, too. According to a new study, maintaining ideal sleeping habits may have the potential to add years to your life.

The study was presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session and demonstrated how getting good sleep is linked to longevity. To obtain their findings, researchers used data from the National Health Interview Survey from 1997 to 2018, as well as the National Dead Index records up to December 31, 2019. They used both data sets to examine the connection between sleep factors and mortality for 172,321 participants.

The participants were given a sleep pattern score based on five sleep-related factors. Those who were put into the low-risk groups practiced the following sleep habits.

• Seven to eight hours of sleep per night
• Difficulty falling asleep less than twice a week
• Trouble staying asleep less than twice a week
• No sleep medication use
• Waking up feeling well rested at least five days a week

According to the study results, eight percent of deaths by any cause may be linked to poor sleep patterns, and people who maintain healthier sleep habits are less likely to die prematurely. The researchers found that participants who had a sleep score of five were less likely to die for any reason compared to participants who has a sleep score of zero to one.

What's more, people who had healthy sleep habits were 21 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, 19 percent less likely to die from cancer, and 40 percent less likely to die from causes other causes. All in all, the researchers believe that practicing all five low-risk sleep factors was associated with an increased life expectancy of 4.7 years for men and 2.4 years for women.