Overview
Lack of sleep greatly puts you at risk of heart attack and stroke. To fully understand this connection, let us examine sleep and heart disease along with ways to boost health and reduce the risk. The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that the lack of sleep increases the risk of heart disease. As per the latest study, the researchers uncovered that men who reported incidences of sleep disorder had an increased risk of a heart attack up to 2.6 times higher than those who had no sleeping problems.
Further, the risk of stroke has increased fourfold in comparison to men without a sleep disorder. Since heart disease in particular is one of the leading causes of death around the world, these findings are quite useful. Understanding the connection between the sleep and heart disease can help to find the means for improving the heart health and reduce the risk to develop heart disease.
Importance of sleep for good heart health
As mentioned previously, sleep is significant for overall good health. As per the survey conducted between 1999 and 2004, around 40 million Americans suffer from a variety of sleep disorders most of which goes undiagnosed. Hence sleeplessness is a large problem that should be addressed.
Let us now explore how lack of sleep affects health. It causes elevated blood pressure, impaired brain activity, depleted energy moodiness, depression, increased risk of accidents, increased risk of diabetes, weight gain, weakened immune system, increased risk of angina and arrhythmias, hallucinations and increased risk of fluid in the lungs leading to heart failure. Lack of sleep affects all the major functions within the body hence improving the quality of sleep is significant for your overall wellbeing.
Tips to improve sleep for good heart health
It is important that we try getting the most and best kind of sleep possible. Many factors contribute to lack of sleep that can hurt your heart health hence pinpointing the underlying cause is the first step.
Are you stressed? Do you have any specific medical issue? Are you on medications that keep you awake at night? These are few important question to ask yourself when trying to improve your sleep.
Few fundamental recommendations for sleeping well includes reducing one’s stress levels, staying physically active, eating well, avoid junk food as it can promote insomnia and avoid caffeine and other stimulants. These tips work to improve your sleep immediately.
If you exercise frequently, avoid caffeine, enjoy a healthy diet but still can’t catch sleep then talk with your doctor about it. He/she will be able to detect whether you have an underlying condition that is preventing you from sleeping. As for instance, few conditions such as an overactive bladder, arthritis and joint pain are all factors that keep you awake. If you are currently on medications like hypertension medications or steroids then these too can prevent you from sleeping. Even depression and other mental health disorders prevent you from sleeping. Seeking help for these conditions is significant to treat the mental illnesses and achieve better sleep.
Keep in mind this one thing that while improving sleep is to avoid sleeping aids as much as possible. This is because they not only cause side effects such as headaches, constipation and drowsiness but also they can have even more severe side effects such as drug dependency which can interact with your current medications. Further they can be toxic for your liver. Hence, it is significant to try the natural solutions to improve your sleep.
Conclusion
Heart disease is preventable and a good first step is improving your sleep quality. With the natural tips for better sleep and other lifestyle factors such as exercising, eating well and not smoking you can successfully reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke. So, the take home message here is for a better heart health start with a solid good night’s rest.
