To ensure greater longevity and healthy aging, some care is necessary, including good nutrition, physical exercise and quality sleep. But one of these pillars may be the most important for increasing your life expectancy, according to a new study: sleeping well.
The work, published at the beginning of the month in the magazine, showed that getting little sleep can shorten life. According to the study, sleep stood out more than diet, exercise and loneliness as a determining factor in life expectancy, second only to smoking.
“I did not expect there to be such a strong correlation with life expectancy,” says study senior author Andrew McHill, in a press release. “We’ve always thought that sleep is important, but this research really reinforces that idea: people should strive to get seven to nine hours of sleep if possible,” he adds.
To conduct the study, researchers used a vast national database to look for research trends associated with average life expectancy in each county. They compared county-level data on average life expectancy with comprehensive survey data collected by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 2019 and 2025.
A night of at least seven hours of rest, as recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society, was considered a “” night. According to researchers, lack of sleep can have an impact on cardiovascular health, the immune system and brain function.
Scientists already widely understood the importance of getting enough sleep for a variety of health benefits. However, the authors said they were surprised by the strong link between sleep and sleep.
“It’s intuitive and makes a lot of sense, but it was still impressive to see it materialize so strongly across all of these models,” says McHill. “I’m a sleep physiologist and I understand the health benefits of sleep, but the strength of the association between getting enough sleep and life expectancy was remarkable to me,” he adds.
“This research shows that we need to prioritize sleep at least as much as we prioritize what we eat or how we exercise,” he says. “Sometimes we think of sleep as something we can put aside and maybe put off until later or the weekend.”
How to sleep better?
To ensure success, some precautions are necessary, such as:
- Determine sleeping and waking times;
- Have a routine during the week, with nighttime rituals, such as taking a hot shower, wearing comfortable clothes and preparing the environment for sleeping;
- Avoid naps during the day;
- Organize the environment for a good night’s sleep;
- Take care of your diet, choosing natural ingredients, vegetables, fruits and greens;
- Avoid using screens before bed;
- Practice physical exercise regularly;
- Avoid caffeine at night;
- Reduce sound stimuli;
- Taking care of mental health.
