Getting Too Much or Too Little Sleep Can Hurt Your Heart

People with a genetic risk of having heart disease can help protect themselves by getting the right amount of sleep, as too much or too little sleep can people people at risk for a heart attack. Health experts have long touted the benefits of getting a good night’s sleep.

Get around 8 hours of Zzz’s a night and you’ll likely experience improved concentration and productivity. Sleep can also boost your immune system, athletic performance, and mood.
Despite all the benefits, a third of adultsTrusted Source in the United States don’t get the right amount of sleep.

Recent research found that getting too little — or too much—sleep can boost your risk of heart attack, even if you’re healthy.
Additionally, everyone, including people who have a genetic predisposition for heart disease, can mitigate the risk of heart attack by getting about six to nine hours of sleep a night, according to 2019 research.

This provides some of the strongest research to date that sleep duration is a key factor in regards to heart health, according to the researchers.

Sleep can offset your risk of heart attack
Research from 2018 studying over 60,000 adults found that individuals who slept less than six hours per night had a significantly higher risk of developing coronary heart disease.

Poor sleep quality, such as experiencing dreamy sleep or difficulty falling asleep, was also linked to increased heart disease risk.
Sleep can protect people with a genetic risk of heart attack
While we don’t know the exact reason why sleep lowers the risk of heart attack, it’s well known that sleep is vital for our overall health and well-being.

Healthy sleep habits are linked to better performance, mood, learning, and memory. Poor sleep, on the other hand, can disrupt the body’s systems and significantly harm heart health.
“Not sleeping enough can result in metabolic abnormalities (e.g. obesity), inflammation, stress, changes in immune function, and abnormal function of the lining of blood vessels. These can further increase the risk of having a heart attack in those already genetically predisposed to heart disease,” says Dr. Meir Kryger, a sleep expert and pulmonologist with Yale Medicine.

This can be extremely helpful information for anyone with a genetic predisposition for heart disease, as they can significantly reduce their heart attack risk by prioritizing sleep.

The bottom line
Research suggests that both insufficient and excessive sleep, along with low sleep quality, are linked to an increased risk of heart disease.

Maintaining consistent, high quality sleep within a healthy duration (generally, 7 to 8 hours per night) is an important and often overlooked factor in protecting cardiovascular health.