Surprising Charts Show How Deadly Lack of Sleep Is

It used to be a badge of honor for top performers to say they barely slept.

Studies now show that sleeping less than seven hours will almost certainly lead to an early death.

The risks of developing heart disease, obesity and death increase by 83%, 82% and 40% respectively.

And yet, one in three adults in the United States suffers from lack of sleep.

Meanwhile, more recent research shows that sleeping too much, about nine hours or more, is linked to a 74% increased risk of death, a 12% increase in stroke and a 37% increase in obesity.

The consensus among the vast majority of American adults is that the ideal amount of sleep is between seven and eight hours.

However, about 0.5 percent of the population has a rare genetic mutation that allows a person to function on about four to six hours of sleep.

But for the rest of us, the risks of death from all causes are increased when we receive less than six and more than eight or nine a night.

Charts showing the harmful effects of unhealthy sleep – too little or too much – show that there is a high risk of various health problems with six hours of sleep or less.

The same goes for those who sleep more than eight hours: the risks increase with each additional hour spent sleeping.

People who sleep too little are 14% more likely to suffer from depression, about 108% more likely to suffer from anxiety, 37% more likely to be obese and 12% more likely to have a stroke.

They have a 38% increased risk of heart disease, a 29% increased risk of high blood pressure and a 23% increased risk of diabetes.

In 2017, a review of 40 studies on the risk of death from all causes related to sleep duration found that very short and very long sleep durations were associated with a higher risk of death compared with sleep of around 7 hours.

Sleeping between four and six hours increases the risk of death by four to six percent.

Sleeping eight hours increases the risk of death by 3%, sleeping nine hours by 13%, sleeping ten hours by 25% and sleeping eleven hours by 38%.

Another analysis in 2010 by British and Italian researchers looked at 16 studies involving nearly 1.4 million people.

They found that people who slept less than seven hours a night, the average amount, had a 12 percent higher risk of death than those who slept seven to eight hours, the ideal amount.

People who slept more than average – eight to nine hours – had a 30% higher risk of dying than those who slept the ideal amount of time.

And in 2022, a group of Chinese scientists studied the risk of death from all causes associated with sleeping between five hours or less and more than nine hours per night.

The researchers found that sleeping less than five hours a day increased the risk of dying from any cause by 40%, while sleeping more than nine hours a day increased the risk of dying from any cause by 74%.

They studied more than 25,000 American adults who all had different sleep habits and lifestyle factors that contribute to both poor sleep and chronic disease.

A U-shaped relationship was found between sleep duration and all-cause mortality, with the lowest risk being 7 hours per day.

They also found that sleeping too little or too much doubled the risk of heart problems.

Dr Chris Winter, a sleep neurologist in Virginia, told Dailymail.com that the reasons for the link between poor sleep and heart problems are “likely multifactorial”.

He said sleeping too much or too little causes the nervous system to malfunction, leading to a racing heart, high blood pressure and high stress levels.

Poor sleep can also exacerbate inflammation in the body, a well-known risk factor for cardiovascular disease, stroke, dementia and autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis.

Weight and metabolism are also affected when a person sleeps too much or too poorly, as diet tends to suffer. The effects of sleep on hormones cause people to make less healthy food choices.

Dr. Beth Frates, director of lifestyle and wellness medicine in the department of surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, said, “Most people focus on exercise and diet when it comes to managing their weight and having a healthy heart, but few focus on sleep.

“Looking for ways to improve sleep hygiene can help people get more sleep than the recommended seven to nine hours a night. This, in turn, could lead to lower calorie consumption and even weight loss in people who fall into the overweight category based on BMI.”

In another study examining heart health risk published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers found that middle-aged adults with conditions such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, heart disease or stroke may face a higher risk of cancer and premature death if they sleep less than six hours a night.

They studied more than 1,600 adults aged 20 to 74, focusing on those with high blood pressure, diabetes, existing heart disease and a history of stroke.

They underwent laboratory sleep studies from 1991 to 1998, followed by cause-of-death monitoring until the end of 2016.

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During the study period, 512 people died, a third of them from a heart attack or stroke, while a quarter died from cancer.

People with high blood pressure or diabetes who slept less than six hours were twice as likely to die from heart disease or stroke as those who slept longer.

People with heart disease or a history of stroke who slept less than six hours were three times more likely to die from cancer.

The risk of stroke is expected to increase by about 18 percent for every additional hour of sleep beyond the optimal duration of about seven or eight hours.

Another study published last year estimated that sleep problems, such as sleeping too little or too much, increase the risk of stroke fivefold.

Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of the Center for Circadian and Sleep Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, told CNN: “Poor sleep can impair the natural drop in blood pressure that occurs during nighttime sleep and contribute to hypertension, a major risk factor for stroke and cardiovascular disease.”

The effects of poor sleep can be felt immediately, and after about three days of sleep deprivation, a person may develop hallucinations or psychosis.

It can also lead to an increased risk of accidental death or injury. Nearly 20% of serious injuries from road accidents among the general public are related to driver drowsiness, independent of the effects of alcohol.

Compared with drivers who had slept a normal seven hours, those who reported sleeping less were 1.3 times more likely to have a crash, while those who had slept five to six hours were almost twice as likely to have a crash.

And sleeping four to five hours quadruples the risk of being involved in a serious accident.