Before you reach for that snooze button for the umpteenth time, a new study shows that setting a consistent daily bed and wake time impart some pretty important health benefits.
This is not about an ideal bed time or number of hours you must sleep (although experts say that 7 to 9 hours is probably your best bet). It’s more about creating a consistent schedule that determines when you go to bed and how long to sleep.
In the study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA), researchers found that irregular sleep patterns are associated with a higher likelihood of atherosclerosis. That is, people with greater sleep irregularity — which was defined as shifting the amount of hours of sleep and the time you go to bed — had more plaque buildup in their arteries. So, instead of going to bed one night at 10 pm and other nights at 1 am, it’s best to have a similar bedtime and get a similar number of hours each night.
If your job doesn’t let you sleep at the same time, the research provides some clues about how much variation you can have without causing help problems. While your body will tolerate some variation, if your sleep time and duration are inconsistent every week, it could lead to health issues.
For your sleep duration, don’t alter the amount you sleep each night by more than 2 hours. For example, if you get 6 hours one night, it’s best to get 8 hours the next night instead of overcompensating and sleeping for 10 hours. For sleep timing, try not to vary your bedtime by more than 60 minutes for better health.
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