Improving sleep quality may add years to your life

While we have long heard the benefits of getting good REM sleep, researchers now suggest that quality sleep may even add years to people’s lives. A study states that men who regularly sleep well could live almost five years longer than those who do not, while women could benefit by two years. Scientists found that young people with better sleep habits were less likely to die early. However, the researchers said their findings indicated quantity of sleep was not enough to achieve the possible health benefits, quality mattered too.
Good sleep was based on five different factors, including ideal sleep duration of seven to eight hours a night, difficulty falling asleep no more than two times a week, trouble staying asleep no more than two times a week, not using any sleep medication, and feeling well-rested after waking up at least five days a week.
Internal medicine resident physician at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, America, Dr. Frank Qian said, “We saw a clear dose-response relationship, so the more beneficial factors someone has in terms of having higher quality of sleep, they also have a stepwise lowering of all cause and cardiovascular mortality.”
He added, “I think these findings emphasise that just getting enough hours of sleep isn’t sufficient. You really have to have restful sleep and not have much trouble falling and staying asleep.” Each sleep factor has assigned zero or one point for each, for a maximum of five points, which indicated the highest quality sleep.
Qian said, “If people have all these ideal sleep behaviours, they are more likely to live longer. So, if we can improve sleep overall, and identifying sleep disorders is especially important, we may be able to prevent some of this premature mortality.”
The researchers included data from 172,321 people with an average age of 50, 54% of whom were women, who participated in the National Health Interview Survey between 2013 and 2018. The survey looked at the health of the US population and included questions about sleep and sleep habits.
The study found that, compared with people who had zero to one favourable sleep factor, those who had all five were 30% less likely to die for any reason, 21% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, 19% less likely to die from cancer, and 40% less likely to die of causes other than heart disease or cancer.
Among men and women who reported having all five quality sleep measures (a score of five), life expectancy was 4.7 years greater for men and 2.4 years greater for women, compared with those who had none or only one of the factors. One limitation of the study, presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology, was that sleep habits were self-reported and not objectively measured or verified.