A good night’s sleep, just like a balanced diet and exercise, is crucial for preserving heart health. With time, harmful sleeping patterns can affect your heart, causing higher stress levels, less motivation to be physically active, and unhealthy food choices. Dr Prashant Chhajed, director-pulmonology, Fortis Hiranandani Hospital, Navi Mumbai, says that lack of sleep can have both short-term and long-term impact. “While short-term effects include lack of alertness, sleeping during the day and impaired memory, in the long-term, chronic lack of sleep can result in obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart attack or heart failure and stroke,” he says.
Sleep is the time when the body relaxes and recharges itself; growth hormone is secreted at its peak during sleep, which aids fat metabolism and also promotes bone and muscle growth. Come to think of it, sleep provides all the benefits of exercising within the comfort of your home and that too in your bed. But despite these advantages, the benefits of sleep are often overlooked. “Insufficient sleep leads to an inflammatory state in the body and causes insulin resistance, leading to diabetes, unhealthy weight gain and obesity. It weakens the immune system and leaves people at a higher risk of viral and flu infections,” says Dr Richa Mittal, consultant, pulmonary medicine, Sir H.N. Reliance Foundation Hospital, Mumbai. People with poor sleep have neuropsychiatric manifestations such as impaired cognition, poor learning, and memory, and they also suffer from personality issues. Depression, anxiety and bipolar disorders are commonly seen in people with inadequate sleep.
During a normal sleeping pattern, the pulse rate slows down and blood pressure drops by 10 to 20 per cent, known as nocturnal dipping, thereby helping the heart to recuperate from the strain suffered during daytime. “Inadequate sleep patterns disrupt this normal cycle of dipping at night and those people are at increased risk of hypertension (high blood pressure), irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias), heart attack and heart failure,” says Dr Mittal. “There is enough scientific data to prove that lack of adequate sleep increases a person’s risk to heart diseases and also to unhealthy weight gain, high blood sugar, high cholesterol levels and depression, all of which are independent risk factors for heart diseases.”
Shortened sleep can lead to stress and inflammation in the body, which causes release of increased C-reactive protein (CRP). High CRP is a risk factor for coronary artery diseases and puts people at considerable risk of getting heart attacks, more so at a younger age.
Although an individual’s sleep needs may vary, on an average, an adult should sleep for seven or more hours, as recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM). Dr Mittal says that it varies with age; for instance, for adolescents (13 to 18 years), 8 to 10 ten hours of sleep on a regular basis is required for optimal health. To inculcate a healthy sleep pattern, follow a sleep schedule by getting up and going to bed at a regular time, using the bedroom only for sleep and developing a relaxing schedule before bedtime, such as reading a book or listening to light music. Dr Chhajed recommends that the bedroom should be dark in order to avoid watching TV or using digital devices just before going to bed.
