Studies show that good quality sleep plays an essential part in supporting our heart and overall health, possibly even prolonging life expectancy. One research project discovered that individuals who engage in regular quality sleeping patterns were less likely to die prematurely.

These results also show that approximately eight percent of deaths can be attributed to poor sleeping habits.

Researchers observed a dose-response relationship in which individuals saw a gradual reduction of cardiovascular and all-cause deaths when more beneficial factors contribute to improving sleep quality.

Researchers conducted their analysis using data from 172,321 individuals aged 50 years or over who took part annually in a National Center for Health Statistics/CDC survey to evaluate population health; questions included ones about sleep and patterns. Their study used this nationally representative population to explore whether different sleep behaviors (not only duration) might have an impactful relationship to life expectancy.

Participants were linked with records from the National Death Index so researchers could investigate any correlations between individual sleep factors and cause-specific or all-cause deaths and the National Death Index records for them. On average, participants were followed for 4.3 years before 8,681 of them passed away.

2,052 of these deaths were associated with cancer, 2,610 with cardiovascular disease-related causes and 4,019 were from other sources.

Researchers evaluated five quality sleep factors using a low-risk sleep score they created from answers gathered during their survey.
Factors evaluated by this score included an ideal 7 to 8 hours of restful slumber each night; difficulty falling asleep only twice per week and trouble staying asleep throughout the night.
Sleep difficulties at least twice per week without using sleep aids (meds), while feeling well rested after sleeping at least five nights each week, were assessed with each factor receiving either zero or one point, with five points being awarded as the best quality of restful slumber. A score between zero and one was assigned per factor with five being the highest quality sleep quality score possible.

Sleep behaviors associated with longer lives may be improved through better overall sleeping conditions and by diagnosing sleep disorders early. By increasing sleep quality overall and treating any potential disorders that cause early death, some premature deaths might be avoided.

For this analysis, other factors which might have increased risk of death such as other medical conditions, alcohol and smoking consumption and lower socioeconomic status were taken into consideration.

Comparatively, individuals who had all five favorable sleep factors had 30% lower chances of dying for any cause and 19% fewer chances of dying from cancer and 21% fewer chances from cardiovascular disease; and 40% reduced chances from other causes other than cancer and heart disease.

These other causes of death could include neurodegenerative disorders, infections or accidents including Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

Women and men who reported all five measures of quality sleep experienced longer lives, with women enjoying an increase of 2.4 years and 4.7 years for men compared with individuals who lacked any or only one of these low-risk factors.

More research needs to be conducted in order to understand why men with all five low-risk sleep factors experienced twice the life extension in comparison with women sleeping similarly quality sleep.

Sleep hygiene and eliminating potential distractions will likely reap long-term health advantages, bringing advantages to all areas of health.

Researchers estimated life expectancy gains starting at age 30 for this study, but their model could also be applied to other ages. Younger individuals need to recognize that health behavior changes take time.