Your Sleep Patterns & Health – How Sleep Habits Can Increase Longevity

When you think about steps you can take to live a longer, healthier life, you probably think about diet and exercise, but you should also be thinking about sleep. Believe it or not, healthy sleep patterns and restorative sleep every night can go a long way towards maximizing your lifespan. Here’s how sleep can help increase longevity.

Your Body Repairs Itself While You’re Sleeping

Getting adequate, restful sleep is the fuel your body needs to repair tissues, cells, and organs each night. Even your skin cells are repaired during sleep, which is why chronic sleep deprivation can make you look physically exhausted and worn down. Just a single night of not getting the sleep you need can speed up the aging process in your cells.

When you’re young, about one-fifth of your nighttime sleep is spent in a deep sleep state, which is when this cellular repair takes place. Once you’re over 65, you may be getting as little as zero deep sleep each night.

Restful Sleep Supports Brain Health

When you don’t get a good night’s rest, you don’t function at your best the next day—you may have trouble focusing, feel irritable, have low energy, or just generally feel like you’re not working at 100% capacity. This is because sleep supports the neurological and cognitive processes of the brain. It’s easy to see why there’s a link between Alzheimer’s disease and sleep deprivation.

Throughout the day, harmful proteins build up in the brain. One of these types of proteins, called beta-amyloid, has been linked to Alzheimer’s disease. When you sleep, the brain flushes out these toxic proteins, but when the body is in a sleep deprived state, this process doesn’t occur as it should. This is why it’s critical to get the sleep you need each and every night.

Sleep Is Important to Cardiovascular and Metabolic Health

Cardiovascular disease and diabetes are two of the most common health conditions in the United States, but getting adequate sleep each night is one of the simplest methods to guard against these two diseases. We know this because patients with obstructive sleep apnea have higher incidence of both diabetes and cardiovascular conditions.

Because we are more at risk for high blood pressure and cardiovascular disorders when we don’t get enough sleep, sleep is critical for heart health and a healthy metabolism. High blood sugar, insulin disorders, and a higher risk of both prediabetes and type 2 diabetes have all been associated with sleep disorders.

Sleep Supports the Immune System

You might be surprised to learn that even your immune system function is linked to the quality of your sleep. Sleeping well helps the immune system work at its best, whereas sleep disruption can interfere with healthy immunological activity. In other words, when you get the sleep you need, your body is better prepared to fight disease. This, too, is one of the keys to a long, healthy life.

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