LIFESTYLE AUTHOR
Jacqueline Knox
THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH: SLEEP n More Zzz’s, longer life. Here’s why.
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etting a good night’s sleep is imperative to your overall health and body function, especially as you get older. Everyone can feel the initial effects of a poor night’s sleep — fatigue, bad mood, lack of focus, etc. — but not many know the long-term effects on one’s longevity until it is too late to correct a bad sleeping pattern. Kathy Richards (Ph.D., RN, FAAN, FAASM), a clinical professor and senior research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin, specializes in the area of adult health. Her research focuses specifically on improving sleep. “A lot of studies that we’ve been doing as sleep scientists show that too-long sleep or too-short sleep over lifespan is likely to affect longevity,” Richards explains. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lack of sleep can be directly linked to certain health issues like high blood pressure, type two diabetes, obesity, heart attack, asthma and depression. Also, a 2014 study found that sleeping six hours or less per night can even increase one’s chances of having a car crash by 33%. On the flip side, an abundance of sleep can also cause issues. A 2019 study focused on the association of sleep duration, napping and strokes found that sleeping nine
AUGUST 2021
hours or more a night increased the incidence of stroke by 13% compared to those who sleep seven to eight hours a night. This is because excess sleep is linked to conditions like obesity and high cholesterol, which are both risk factors for stroke. Most interestingly, a 2007 study following twins found that there was an increased risk of death for both over- and under-sleeping at night. The risk was 24% if people slept less than seven hours and 17% for more than eight hours a night. Another study focused on twins found that sleep deprivation suppresses one’s immune system, which would increase mortality risk. Richards, who has been studying sleep for over 25
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