For years researchers have warned us about getting too little or too much sleep. If we specifically focus on ‘over sleeping’, previous researchers had linked it to various heart diseases, saying that people who slept for longer hours (more than 8 hours) were at the risk of developing heart diseases. However, a recent large scale Chinese study claims that those researchers were based on subjective data and might not be as reliable. Meaning, that the time was recorded by the participants themselves and it is very likely that they confused ‘time in bed’ with actual ‘sleep time’. The researchers made a bold claim linking irregular sleep with 172 diseases. How? Let us find out:
The Flaw With Earlier Research
Dr. Qing Chen at the Third Military Medical University in China organised the study and used accelerometers from the UK Biobank to augment survey-based self-reports about sleeping behavior. Novel wrist-worn accelerometers obtained real data not only about how long individuals slept, but also when they slept, how truncated their sleep was, and the variability of their sleep over each day; researchers utilised this information for analysis.
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The study illustrates a significant flaw present for decades in sleep studies, as many people misestimate their sleep. When applying the research specifically to only those individuals who both indicated and objectively had long amounts of sleep, the associated health risks dissipated, which means the notion that long hours of sleep have major health risks might not be as accurate as claimed earlier.
Quality Sleep Over Quantity Sleep
The research published recently in the journal Health Data Science, found that many of the participants reporting time spent sleeping for more than the eight-hour guideline were only getting six hours or less of sleep altogether. The granular data revealed the connection between disrupted sleep rhythms, irregular scheduling, inconsistency, and fragmented sleeping was present in 172 diseases including major chronic diseases. For vulnerable older adults, risk factors for age-related frailty were three times greater if sleep rhythms were highly disrupted than not at all.
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The risk of developing gangrene was double, if sleep rhythms were disrupted than not at all. Most public health recommendations regarding sleep emphasise the accepted sleep targets of 7–9 hours per day (with some suggestions for 8-10 hours targeting vulnerable older adults) but the study indicated irrespective of total sleep time, when and how well you sleep may ultimately have more meaning. Disrupted sleep rhythms were found significantly associated with 83 diseases previously not recognised as related to sleep duration
Bottomline
Although earlier, the experts would focus more on the ‘quantity’ of the sleep, this research has proven that it may not be about the time at all. How well we sleep and how deeply we sleep matter more, if the researchers are to be believed. The researchers suggested that irregular sleep may be a driver for more than 170 diseases, but they also remarked that adequate and quality sleep is useful in preventing most of those.