Sleep isn’t just a time for your body to rest—it’s also a mirror of your overall health. According to a new study from Penn State University, how you sleep each night, whether you nap during the day or catch up on sleep on the weekends, can predict your risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and depression over the years.
4 typical sleeping styles
The study was conducted on about 3,700 middle-aged adults using data from the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) project, with two survey waves about 10 years apart.
Subjects provided information on their sleep habits: sleep duration, regularity, sleep satisfaction, daytime alertness, etc. They also reported any chronic diseases in their health history.
From this data, scientists identified four types of sleep as follows:
| Sleeping style | Outstanding features |
| Good sleepers | Good sleep time and quality, regular, less tired during the day, easy to fall asleep and wake up on time. |
| Weekend catch-up sleepers | Sleep less on weekdays, but sleep longer on weekends or days off to “compensate.” |
| Insomnia sleepers | Difficulty falling asleep, poor quality sleep, frequent daytime fatigue or sleepiness. |
| Nappers | Sleep relatively well or enough at night, but still sleep a lot during the day. |
Sleeping habits “predict” chronic diseases after many years
When comparing these sleep-style groups over time, researchers found:
Insomniacs have the highest risk of chronic diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, depression, and frailty. The increased risk compared to good sleepers ranges from 71% to 188% depending on the disease.
People who sleep during the day - even if they sleep well at night - have an increased risk of diseases such as diabetes, cancer and depression compared with those who sleep well.
Those in the weekend sleep-in group did not show a clear association with chronic disease risk compared with the good sleep group.
Furthermore, the activities of the insomnia and excessive daytime sleep groups appeared to become fixed habits. Many maintained these suboptimal sleep patterns for the entire 10 years of follow-up.
Why does sleep have such a profound impact on health?
The authors propose several hypotheses to explain why sleep patterns may lead to chronic disease, including:
Poor quality sleep or insufficient sleep time reduces cell recovery ability, increases oxidative stress, and chronic inflammation.
Circadian rhythm disorders due to irregular sleep, staying up late, sleeping in, irregular naps... lead to hormonal disorders, increased cortisol - affecting blood sugar and lipid metabolism.
Excessive daytime napping may be a sign of substandard or disrupted nighttime sleep – meaning that although total sleep time may be adequate, the quality and distribution during the day are not optimal.
Social factors - work pressure, living environment, physical conditions (e.g. being overweight, existing chronic diseases) also increase the negative effects of unhealthy sleep patterns.
What to do to "escape" the poor sleep group and protect your health?
Long-term maintenance of suboptimal sleep patterns can increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes; the risk of depression and mental decline; and physical frailty - reduced functional capacity, weaker resistance to disease.
If you find yourself falling into the insomnia or daytime sleepiness category, you can try the following measures to adjust:
Set a regular sleep schedule: go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on weekends;
Create a quality sleep environment: quiet, dark bedroom, suitable temperature, avoid screen light and electronic devices before going to bed;
Limit caffeine/stimulants in the afternoon and evening;
Regular exercise: moderate activity during the day improves sleep at night;
Reduce psychological stress: meditation, deep breathing, relaxing activities before bed;
Reduce the habit of napping if not necessary, or limit the nap time (e.g. 20-30 minutes), avoid napping too long if you do not sleep well at night;
Monitor overall health: if you have underlying diseases (diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, etc.), you should have regular check-ups and consult a doctor if prolonged sleep is affected by these diseases./.
Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/4-kieu-ngu-pho-bien-tiet-lo-nguy-co-benh-man-tinh-cua-ban-post1061722.vnp
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