Misstropolis

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Sleep - It’s Not Just for Beauty Any More

by Rachael Moeller Gorman

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We dream of sleep all day long and catch it wherever we can - on the train, during our lunch break, at our kids’ soccer practice. Sleep deprivation is a badge of honor, proof that we’re martyr mothers, hard-core players, or ambitious corporate ladder-climbers. But serial five-hour nights may be doing more to our bodies than just causing mental fuzz and physical fatigue – it may actually be making us sick. Research is showing that skipping sleep to add hours to your day may simply be stealing them from the end of your life.

The relationship between sleep and disease makes intuitive sense – non-stop use of anything, from car engines to sneakers, wears them down faster. Our intricate, delicate bodies are no different. In some of the biggest epidemiological studies, where thousands of participants provide information on the foods they eat, the exercise they do, the activities they enjoy, researchers now link the amount of sleep participants get to the diseases they inevitably suffer.

Consider the heart. A 2007 study following 10,308 British men and women for more than 20 years found that women (not men) who consistently slept six or fewer hours a night were much more likely to develop hypertension (blood pressure higher than 140/90 mm Hg) than those who slept seven hours.

Going one step further, a German study that followed 6,896 men and women for 10 years found that women who slept five or fewer hours a night had a significantly higher risk of suffering a heart attack than those who slept eight hours. Another study showed that people who slept five or fewer hours were more likely to be on their way to developing atherosclerosis.

But does lack of sleep cause these problems, or do people who sleep less also do other things that put them at risk for disease (say, chain smoking while working all night and munching on Cheez-Its)? With some fancy statistical analyses, scientists were still able to independently link less sleep to heart problems – regardless of other lifestyle choices. In addition, they also found that sleeping less can propel a person down to road to weight gain, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and even a higher risk of dying at a younger age.

Lest you decide to hit the sheets before the sun sets, however, researchers discovered that too much sleep might be nearly as bad as not enough: getting nine or more hours a night increased the risk of hypertension and heart attack.

No one knows exactly what’s going on in the body when a person is fatigued. Researchers think it may have something to do with our body’s response to stress (not sleeping is a stressful condition). In any case, burning the candle at both ends leaves us tired and sick. As we strive to eat right, exercise and live a healthful life, perhaps slowing the pace works better than constant drive for success. So get rid of the guilt, cuddle under the comforter, and sleep your way to a happy body.