Sleep linked to heart woes
People who sleep less than six hours a night or more than eight are more likely to suffer heart problems than people who sleep between six and eight hours.
A US study confirms the conclusions of previous, smaller studies, and is based on what researchers describe as a nationally representative sample of 3000 people covering five separate heart ailments and their links to sleep duration.
The subjects for the study were people over age 45 who participated in a survey of health issues in US households known as the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Subjects were asked to describe their sleep patterns and were also asked if they were ever told they had congestive heart failure, heart attack, coronary artery disease, angina or stroke.
People who said they got too little sleep each night were twice more likely to have a stroke or heart attack and 1.6 more likely to have congestive heart failure than people who slept between six and eight hours nightly, the researchers said.
Great People Sleep Less?
Six to eight hours per day is the average amount of sleep a person needs. That’s about one-third of a lifetime! As a population, we sleep about 1 to 1.5 hours less than we did 100 years ago. Scientists say that sleeping 7 – 8 hours a day is normal, if you sleep less, your health can suffer from that. Though sleep requirements vary from person to person - some people are naturally short or long sleepers.
Some sources claim that the legendary artist Leonardo Da Vinci was able to stay awake and alert almost 22 hours of every day, all the while working on brilliant artworks and inventions. He slept only 1.5 - 2 hours a day taking a nap 15 - 20 minutes for every four hours that he was awake.
Nowadays this sleeping system is called polyphasic sleep. Its followers try to use it and say that the system works fine for them. However its opponents say that da Vinci sleeping habit is just a myth, there are no trusted sources to confirm this fact about great artist.
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Thomas Jefferson is considered to be a polyphasic sleeper. He slept only 2 hours a day.
Though, in letters to Doctor Vine Utley (1819), Thomas Jefferson writes about his sleep habits. We can conclude that his sleep was not very regular, he would go to sleep at different times (often late into the night), he would always devote at least 30 min. to creative reading before sleep, he would fall asleep later if the reading was of particular interest, and he would regularly wake up at sunrise.
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Sir Isaac Newton needed 3-4 hours of sleep daily.
He worked so long and hard, often without sleep for days that he became ill from exhaustion.
“He was suddenly struck by an amazing thought. Perhaps the moon was trying to fall to earth (a much larger mass than the moon). Perhaps there was some other force preventing it from doing so. What if the centrifugal force pulling the moon away from the earth was perfectly balanced with gravity force pulling the moon toward the earth? If that were true it might also account for the movement of the earth around the sun, in fact all the planets. How about the entire universe? Wow! What a concept. No wonder he couldn’t sleep.”
~ Isaak Newton Biography by Famous Lives
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Some sources say that Napoleon slept only from 12 p.m. to 2 a.m., and then he woke up, worked and went to bed again at 5 a.m. and woke up at 7 a.m. It means he slept only 4 hours a night.
“Different subjects and different affairs are arranged in my head as in a cupboard. When I wish to interrupt one train of thought, I shut that drawer and open another. Do I wish to sleep, I simply close all the drawers and then I am - asleep.”
Some publications claim that he advocated 6 hours of sleep a night for men and 6 for women.
The officers of Napoleon have reported that even in a battlefield after long hours, Napoleon had the amazing ability to energize himself within half an hour. He handed over his command to his subordinates giving them instructions that he was not to be disturbed under any circumstances for the next half an hour. Then stretching out in his tent he would enter into scientific sleep and precisely within half an hour he would come out energized, fresh and ready again for an action.
People who said they slept more than eight hours a night were twice more likely to have angina and 1.1 times more likely to have coronary artery disease.
Myths and Facts about Sleep
Myth 1: Getting just 1 hour less sleep per night won’t affect your daytime functioning. You may not be noticeably sleepy during the day. But even slightly less sleep can affect your ability to think properly and respond quickly, and compromise your cardiovascular health, energy balance, and ability to fight infections.
Myth 2: Your body adjusts quickly to different sleep schedules. Most people can reset their biological clock, but only by appropriately timed cues—and even then, by 1–2 hours per day at best. Consequently, it can take more than a week to adjust after traveling across several time zones or switching to the night shift.
Myth 3: Extra sleep at night can cure you of problems with excessive daytime fatigue. Not only is the quantity of sleep important but also the quality of sleep. Some people sleep 8 or 9 hours a night but don’t feel well rested when they wake up because the quality of their sleep is poor.
Myth 4: You can make up for lost sleep during the week by sleeping more on the weekends. Although this sleeping pattern will help relieve part of a sleep debt, it will not completely make up for the lack of sleep. Furthermore, sleeping later on the weekends can affect your sleep-wake cycle so that it is much harder to go to sleep at the right time on Sunday nights and get up early on Monday mornings.
Adapted from: Your Guide to Healthy Sleep (PDF) The National Institutes of Health