People Who Do This Nightly Live For Up To 4.7 Years Longer On Average

Long over is the "we can sleep when we're dead" era of glamorizing sleepless nights. It now reads, "work hard, rest harder" in the health and wellness zeitgeist, and our minds and bodies are better off for it.

Sleep gives our brains a chance to download the information from our day, flush out old cells, and regenerate new, healthy ones. It performs a similar reset for many of our most important organ systems, making it an essential part of overall health.

Research presented at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology1 looked at how overall sleep quality affected life span.

It concluded that overall sleep quality meaningfully extended life span when compared to just one aspect of sleep, like total hours.

The study assessed the sleep quality of over 172,000 people and followed them to track the incidence of death over about four years.

Men who recorded having all five favorable sleep factors averaged a 4.7-year-longer life span than those who had none or only one of these factors, while women who had none or only one of those factors averaged a 2.4-year-longer life span.

While more research is needed to rule out errors due to inaccuracies in self-reporting, this data suggests that it's important to prioritize overall sleep quality when it comes to living a longer, healthier life. 

Perfect sleep is a nearly unattainable goal, but better sleep habits can make a huge difference in the long run.

A recent study looked at participants' overall sleep quality (not just how many hours they slept per night) and found that when several positive sleep quality variables were self-reported, life span increased considerably.

This means that taking a closer look at your sleep hygiene could make a real difference when it comes to avoiding the leading causes of death.