Learn about Good Sleep and Heart Health

It’s British Heart Week from 7th June to 15th June. Learn about the connection between good sleep and heart health. Scientific research has discovered strong connections between good sleep and heart health – and vice versa. You can lower your risk of developing cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease by making sure that you get good sleep every night. Gift good sleep and good health to yourself and your loved ones this week.

Good Sleep Means Better Heart Health

Harvard Health tells us that poor sleep doesn’t just put you in a bad mood, make you unproductive at work, or generally lower your quality of life. Not getting good sleep can endanger your heart health. You might suffer from a condition that causes insomnia or you might simply not be getting good sleep because you work too much or have too many other things going on. Either way, your heart can be in danger.

When you don’t get good sleep – whether you have an irregular sleep pattern or you just don’t sleep long enough or deep enough due to some other cause – you can develop several cardiovascular risks. You can experience high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and coronary artery disease.

The Effects of Not Getting Good Sleep

When you get less than six hours of good sleep every night, it becomes a danger to your heart health. A lack of sleep, even if it’s just for one night, causes higher levels of stress hormones in your blood along with other substances that indicate inflammation, a main factor of cardiovascular disease. When you don’t sleep enough, it also leads to disruptions in the normal biological processes of your body, including blood pressure and glucose metabolism. Deep sleep, which you can only reach during longer periods of sleep, causes your heart rate and blood pressure to lower. Without good sleep, the consistently higher rates often lead to higher blood pressure during your waking hours.

Too much sleep can also be bad for your health, but research has not been able to show yet exactly how or to what extent. However, it does already show that people who regularly sleep more than nine hours a night experience stiffer leg arteries and a calcium buildup in the heart artery walls.

You might think that your heart is healthy because you are not overweight and don’t smoke, exercise regularly and are not at a high-risk age for heart disease. Regardless, know that if you don’t get good sleep, you are still at a higher risk for cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease.

Video from National Sleep Foundation

Start taking care of your heart today by taking steps to ensure that you are getting good sleep every night. Do you experience sleep disruptions that you can’t get away from because of ambient light and snoring or other sounds? Use a bamboo charcoal sleeping eye mask with free earplugs anywhere you are to block out light and sound. Do you snore or have back pain that stops you from getting to sleep and staying asleep? Get a shredded memory foam pillow to rest your head, neck, shoulders and spine in the proper positions to stop snoring and reduce pain and stiffness. Do you have a condition that causes you to feel pain all over your body? Try a memory foam mattress topper to relieve the pressure points to ease the pain so you can get some good sleep.