People With This Bad Sleep Habit Are More Likely To Develop Heart Disease

The study, published in February, collected data from over 2,000 U.S. adults aged 45 and 84 years old. For seven days, participants wore a device that collected data about their sleep patterns and underwent a handful of cardiovascular assessments.

The researchers looked at a range of factors, including coronary artery calcium (which helps measure how much plaque buildup there is in your arteries), carotid intima-media thickness (which diagnoses the extent of the buildup), and the ankle-brachial index (a test that compares the blood pressure in the upper and lower limbs).

The researchers cross-examined both sets of data and found that sleep irregularity–particularly when it comes to sleep duration, or how many hours of sleep you get a night–was associated with several risk factors for arteriosclerosis, a type of disease characterized by a narrowing of the arteries.

More specifically, the results showed that variations in sleep duration of more than 2 hours a night within the same week were more likely to have higher levels of coronary artery calcium and abnormal ankle-brachial indices.

This study suggests that when it comes to sleep, maintaining a consistent bedtime and wake time is just as important as how many hours of sleep you get overall. And this isn’t the first time irregular sleep habits have been connected to poor health outcomes.

A 2018 study1 showed that more irregular sleep patterns were linked to an increased risk of obesity, hypertension, blood sugar issues, and heart attacks. The same study showed that irregular sleepers are more likely to report chronically high stress levels and depression.

This study is preliminary, but it’s the first ever to link irregular sleep habits with atherosclerosis. And considering that this disease is an underlying factor in more than 50% of deaths in the Western world2, it’s a pretty big deal.

This study suggests that to promote optimal health, we shouldn’t deviate our bedtime by more than 2 hours within a week. This gives us some wiggle room, but not much. It means that if we go to bed at 10 p.m. on the weekdays, we shouldn’t stay out past midnight on the weekend, or go to bed before 8 p.m. if we’re particularly tired one evening.

Maintaining consistent sleep patterns takes a little intention and planning, and nobody will ever be perfect. That said, crafting a solid nighttime routine is a great way to get in the habit of going to bed at the same time each night and help ourselves wind down at the end of a long day. Here are some ideas to start with:

A new study shows that irregular sleep patterns are associated with atherosclerosis. To get the best sleep possible and promote your health, focus on creating consistency with your sleep, as well as spending enough hours in bed every night.