Did you know insomnia impacts heart health? Here’s how you can tackle it

Various researches show that 10-30% of the population worldwide suffers from insomnia which is also linked to increased risk of heart disease.

Insomnia or poor sleep cycle can not only impact behavioural alertness and attention, but also logical reasoning, problems to perform simple tasks, accidents and poor judgment and when it gets chronic, it can even lead to cardiovascular morbidity.

The Biobank prospective cohort study in the UK analysed 500,000 adults of age 40 to 69 having sleep disorder. It showed persons with low sleep duration with less than 5 hours or high sleep duration with more than 9 hours have higher incidence of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.

Other studies have also proved that fragmented and obstructive sleep is linked to high blood pressure, obesity, type 2 diabetes which can raise the risk of heart disease, stroke and heart attacks.

In an interview with Zarafshan Shiraz, Dr Santosh Kumar Dora, Senior Cardiologist at Mumbai’s Asian Heart Institute shared, “Elevated blood levels of inflammatory cytokines are found in persons with sleep deprivation and are thought to cause cardiovascular morbidity and mortality.

Over time continuous problems of sleep deprivation can lead to unhealthy habits which can result in higher stress levels, low energy, less physical activity and unhealthy food choices all of which are risk factors for cardiovascular disease.”

To avoid that, healthy sleeping habits which can lead to 7-9 hours of sound sleep are a must for a healthy heart. Dr Santosh Kumar Dora listed ways on how we can tackle the problems of the sleep cycle and as a result decrease the risk of heart diseases.