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Recently, there’s been a growing focus on the importance of sleep for heart health. Recommendations suggest that we need 7 to 9 hours each night. In this article, we’ll explore the effects of sleep on heart health and psychological health and provide tips for starting a heart-healthy sleep routine.
Sleep quality and quantity (the number of hours a person sleeps each night) can positively or negatively impact health. Poor sleep quality or quantity can cause many adverse effects:
Social determinants of health (SDOH) are the conditions in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age. They affect health risk and quality-of-life. SDOH influence sleep in many ways and poor sleep may lead to sleep health disparities, which are differences between groups of people in at least one type of healthy sleep pattern (duration, timing, quality).
These disparities can be due to:
Adults should get 7 to 9 hours of sleep per day; children 5 and younger need 10 to 16 hours total (that includes nap time); kids 6 to 12 need 9 to 12 hours; and teens 13 to 18 need 8 to 10 hours.
Here are 5 sleep principles and tips to help you get started:
1. Value Your Rest: Sleep is healthy for your mind, body, and heart!
2. Prioritize Your Sleep: For adults, set a goal to be in bed by 10pm. Younger children should be in bed by 7:30-8pm.
3. Personalize Your Sleep Schedule: Figure out what sleep schedule works best for you (early bird or a night owl) and stick to it.
4. Trust the Process: Going to sleep at the same time each night creates healthy sleep patterns in your body. Trust that you CAN create a healthy sleep pattern.
5. Protect Your Sleep Health: Avoid caffeine (coffee, soda, energy drinks), alcohol, heavy meals, screen use (TV, tablet, cell phone), and serious conversations (finances, relationship issues, work problems) right before bedtime. These factors can make tough to prepare your mind and body to go to sleep
Learn More:
"How Sleep Affects Mind, Body and Heart Health" is fourth in a series of five articles on how heart health and mental health are related.
Managing your cardiovascular health is important for both the prevention of heart disease and for promoting and maintaining overall health. There are the 8 key measures (also known as “Life’s Essential 8”) of overall health. This is the third part in a five part series.
Stress can have a profound impact on both our mental and physical well-being. When faced with a stressor, our bodies undergo a complex response. It's important to recognize how stress affects our heart health, as managing both stress and heart health can be challenging. This is the second part of a five part series.
Cardiac and vascular conditions are the most common causes of death, disability, and poor quality of life around the world. This article is part of a series that covers how heart health and mental health are related. This is the first part in a five part series.
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