Sleeping, according to scientists, is important for assimilating new information, and in a recent study, it was discovered that middle-aged adults who get too little sleep are more likely to develop high blood pressure.
The study, which is among the first to directly measure sleep duration in middle-aged adults, found that missing an average of one hour of sleep over five years raised the risk of developing high blood pressure by 37 percent. It also suggests that poor sleep may explain in part why black men have higher blood pressure risk, “People who didn’t sleep as much were at greater risk of developing hypertension over five years,” says Kristen Knutson, one of the medical researchers.
Adults typically need between seven and nine hours of sleep, according to the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, but many get far less, and studies have shown the health consequences. In children, lack of sleep has been shown to raise the rate of obesity, depression and increase in falls. In middle-aged people, it raises the risk of infections, heart disease, stroke and cancer. The recent study involved 578 adults with an average age of 40. Their blood pressure readings showed how long each slept. Only one percent of the subjects slept for eight hours or more.
