Why You Need To Sort Your Messed Up Sleep Schedule

For a healthy heart, having a fixed bed time is more crucial than the hours you sleep, claims a new study

- Shrenik Avlani

This article does not intend to make you lose any sleep. On the contrary, it is an earnest attempt to highlight the risks of irregular sleep routines and patterns, which have come to light thanks to a new study published in the last week of November.

The latest data from the study shows that not only do you need to get the prescribed seven to nine hours of shut-eye daily, it also has to be of good quality and—here's the kicker—it needs to follow a regular pattern or schedule to ensure you are not at an increased risk of an adverse health event.

A team of researchers from Canada, Australia and the United States of America analysed data of 72,269 people, aged 40 to 79, who were part of (biomedical database and research resource) UK Biobank and had no previous history of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). The subjects wore a wrist-based activity tracker for a week and the team followed up on the subjects for eight years. The study, titled Sleep Regularity and Major Adverse Cardiovascular Events: A Device-Based Prospective Study in 72,269 UK Adults, found that irregular sleep was strongly associated with higher risk of cardiovascular diseases including stroke and heart attack.

"Adequate sleep duration was not sufficient to offset these adverse effects among irregular sleepers," the scientists warn in the report.