We all have the habit of not sleeping well during the weekdays due to work, study, or any other purpose. We try to adjust to this lack of sleep during the weekends, which now has been proven to be insufficient to bring our normal sleep cycle back. When our sleep is restricted to 5 hours per day during the week, it leads to declining cardiovascular health including deteriorating heart rate or blood sugar, according to a recent research published by Penn State.
The research published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine, states that only 65% of the Americans stick to the 7 hour sleep cycle.This deprivation of sleep increases the risk of cardiovascular diseases. The co-author of the research Anne Marie Chang, an associate professor of bio-behavioral health, reveals a potential mechanism for this longitudinal relationship, whereby sufficient repeated shocks to your Cardiovascular health, while younger, could increase your risk ofcardiovascular disease in the future.
15 healthy men between the ages of 20 to 35 participated in the study. The participants were allowed to sleep for 10 hours per night for the first 3 nights; 5 hours for the next 5 nights and for the rest 2 nights they were allowed to recover the sleep with a 10 hour sleep night. During the period of assessment, researchers assessed the resting heart rates of the participants every 2 hours to look upon the impact of the sleep cycle on cardiovascular disease.
The heart rate and blood sugar of all the participants were monitored regularly and any slightest change in the cardiovascular health was noted. This means that even if the heart rate would have been naturally slow in the morning but after 2 hours the change would come into notice.
An increase in the heart rate of nearly one beat per minute (BPM) each day of the study was found. The average baseline heart rate was 69 BPM, while the average heart rate by the end of the study on the second day of recovery was nearly 78 BPM, the researchers found.
Roughly 1 in 3 adults report not getting adequate rest on a regular basis. It’s estimated that about 50-70 million Americans have chronic or ongoing sleep disorders, the American Heart Association has said in a recent report. It highlights the unhealthy sleep pattern which is daytime sleepiness and says that, “excessive daytime sleepiness, which is a symptom of many sleep disorders, including hypersomnia, can lead to a greater risk of cardiovascular disease.” Poor sleep habit can trigger heart disease risk factors like obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes.