Sleep: 2 Keys. That’s our subject today.

Do you pride yourself on functioning on minimal sleep?

Seven to 9 hours.

That’s the sweet spot.

But what if I told you that simply hitting that target isn’t enough?

Emerging research reveals that how you sleep might be even more critical than how long you sleep.

And the consequences of getting it wrong? Well, they could be life or death.

How Much Sleep Should You Get?

Do you want to reduce your risk of dying a premature death?

Get seven hours of sleep consistently.

Here are some key findings of a study of East Asian populations:

• Men may experience fewer health challenges with slightly less sleep (six hours) than women.
• Both sexes have the highest premature death risk when sleeping over 10 hours.
• Men sleeping less than five (or over nine) hours nightly have a higher risk of dying from heart disease than those sleeping for seven hours.
• Male cancer death risk was higher for those sleeping eight to 10 hours per night.
• Women sleeping 10 hours or more had a higher chance of dying from cancer.

What About in the U.S.?

The American results are in line with the Asian ones.

Look at the results of an analysis of over 25,000 adults:

There is a U-shaped association between sleep duration and cardiovascular and overall mortality. Those sleeping seven hours had the lowest risk over 10 years.

The researchers deleted data from individuals with known cancer or heart issues and anyone dying within one year of the study.

What’s Going On?

Get short sleep, and you can wreak havoc with several hormones that influence metabolism, including these:

• Testosterone
• Leptin
• Melatonin
• Gherlin

It remains unclear why very long sleep durations are bad.

Sleep Regularity Is Particularly Important

When it comes to sleep and health, duration matters.

But there is another important factor.

Regularity.

Researchers extracted data from the United Kingdom Biobank.

They created a Sleep Regularity Index, a measure of how consistent your sleep schedule is, with scores ranging from 0 (perfectly regular sleep) to 100 (random sleep timing).

Study of Sleep Regularity: Results

The results are striking:

Subjects with the most consistent sleep schedules had nearly half (20 to 48 percent) the risk of all-cause mortality compared with folks closest to random sleep timing.

The regular sleepers also had a much lower rate of cardiometabolic death (22 to 57 percent) and a lower risk (by 16 to 39 percent) of cancer death.

The bottom line? While sleep duration appeared weakly correlated with sleep regularity, it was not as predictive of mortality outcomes.

My take: Don’t mess with your circadian rhythm.

My Strategy

Here are some ways I try to optimize my sleep:

• I am consistent with my sleep/wake schedule (even on my days off from work).
• No alcohol for me.
• I limit my caffeine to the morning hours.
• I now practice mindfulness, usually in the form of meditation.

Summary – Sleep: 2 Keys.

To optimize your health, aim for seven hours of sleep.

Also, try to be consistent with your sleep/wake schedule.

Thank you for reading “Sleep: 2 Keys.”