Investigators indicate that maintaining irregular sleep patterns can be more harmful to health than sleeping little. Having consistent sleeping and waking times may decrease the risk of Parkinson’s disease and depression.
“Eight hours a day of sleep”: a “mantra” repeated for decades and is now arrested. Challenging rooted beliefs about rest, new investigations suggest that the Sleep Quality – not the amount of hours sleeping – can play a more important role in health.
The discovery results from an international, published in the scientific journal Health Data Sciencein which scientists from the University of Beijing and the Chinese Army Medical University monitored the sleep patterns of 88,461 adults for almost seven years, using sophisticated sensors coupled to the participants’ body.
The key to healthy sleep
The analysis, which had data from the UK Biobank Research Repository, examined Six Key Sleep Elements (duration, beginning, rhythm, intensity, efficiency and night awakens) and concluded that, although the proper duration of sleep remains vital to our health, the regularity – Keeping consistent schedules to sleep and wake up – has a more decisive impact on health than the number of hours sleeping. This revelation suggests that predictable rhythms can be much more beneficial to well-being than science had ever considered.
The study also identified a clear relationship between irregular sleep patterns and a higher risk of developing up to 172 diseases. Interestingly, irregular sleep/wakefulness rhythms were associated with almost half of these diseases, tripling the number of conditions related to sleep duration or the exact time when participants were lying, as reported by.
Risks associated with irregular sleep patterns
Among the most relevant findings is the fact that sleeping regularly after 00h30 increases the risk of hepatic cirrhosis In 2.57 times compared to those who lie before 11:30 pm. In addition, low stability in daily sleep/waking cycles increases the risk of gangrene up to 2.6 times, according to the original article published in Health Data Science.
The study also points to significant risks associated with irregular sleep patterns, including a 2.8 times higher risk of developing Parkinson and a 60% higher probability of developing Type 2 diabetesaccording to results highlighted by Science Alert.
Other diseases associated with these standards include primary hypertension, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), acute renal failure e depression.
Excessive sleep myths
The investigation also challenges one of the most widespread myths about sleep: that sleeping too much (9 hours or more) is harmful to health. Objective data collected through body -related devices revealed that this habit has a significant association with only one disease.
The origin of this mistake seems to be in a revealing statistics: 21.67% of participants who reported sleeping more than nine hours, actually slept less than six.
Thus, the real problem did not live in excessive sleep, but in the incorrect perception that they were sleeping, when they were not actually resting effectively. This discrepancy, observing the authors, will probably have distorted the conclusions of previous studies based only on subjective surveys.
“Our findings underline the often neglected importance of sleep regularity,” said epidemiologist Shengfeng Wang, the main author of the study. “It’s time to extend our definition of quality sleep beyond mere duration,” he added.
Scientists also confirmed the relevance of these associations in a US sample, the Nhanes database, reinforcing the validity of conclusions in different cultural and sanitary contexts.
But why does irregular sleep have such a deep impact? Although the mechanisms are not yet fully clarified, researchers point to the body’s inflammatory pathways as a possible biological connection. The next step will be to explore if specific sleep interventions – such as programs designed to improve their regularity – can effectively reduce the risk of long -term disease.
