marcel maia / Flickr
People working at night
A large study found that people who are most active at night – when the majority of the population is winding down or already sleeping – have worse overall heart health than the average person.
The American Heart Association has a list of key factors everyone should pay attention to for better heart health: being physically active; avoid tobacco; get enough sleep and eat a healthy diet; and control blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and weight.
Now, a new major study, this Wednesday in Journal of the American Heart Associationrevealed that the fact that Being a “night owl” also considerably affects our health.
The body’s circadian rhythm (our master biological clock) has a roughly 24-hour schedule that regulates not only when we get sleepy and when we’re most awake, but also keeps our organ systems in sync, influencing things like heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones and metabolism.
But the circadian rhythm varies from person to person.
To find out more, the new study followed more than 300,000 middle-aged and older adults in the UK Biobank (a huge health database that includes information about people’s sleep-wake preferences).
Nearly 8% of these people classified themselves as night owlsmore physically and mentally active in the late afternoon or evening, and awake beyond most people’s bedtime.
About a quarter were early risers, most productive during daylight hours and similarly early to bed. The rest was average.
The investigation concluded that, over 14 years, Night owls had a 16% higher risk of a first heart attack or stroke compared to the average population.
Night owls, especially females, also had worse overall cardiovascular health based on meeting the eight key factors of the heart association.
However, it is important to note that smoking, insufficient sleep and poor diet continue to be the highest risk behaviors.
The study still couldn’t accurately examine what night owls do when the rest of the world is sleeping.
