Six tips for the perfect night’s kip
As research shows snoozing less than 7hrs is harmful to health
DID you have problems dropping off last night? If so, you’re far from alone. One in three people in the UK suffers from some form of insomnia, with 200,000 working days a year lost to absenteeism caused by lack of sleep.
Now research has found regularly getting less than seven hours of sleep can damage our DNA beyond repair.
The study, by the University of Hong Kong, revealed sleep deprivation caused substantial damage to the genes of otherwise healthy young adults – and this damage has elsewhere been linked to a higher risk of cancer and other serious diseases.
A second study found getting enough shut-eye could boost the body’s production of infectionfighting white blood cells.
Researchers at the University of Tübingen in Germany believe this white blood cell boost helps explain why people who sleep eight hours or more per night have a stronger immune system and lower rates of many physical illnesses and depression.
WHY SLEEP IS A HEALER
It comes after a growing number of studies showed getting sufficient sleep provides a big boost for our health – warding off everything from heart disease to cancer. One key reason is that sleep is the time when all the cells in our body get to work repairing themselves.
Anyone who has been sick has experienced some form of this – when bed rest and sleeping has helped our body fight infection and accelerated our recovery.
Miss too much recovery time and problems occur. Professor Colin Smith, of the University of Surrey, says: “If lack of sleep means we can’t replenish and replace these new cells, it’s going to lead to disease in the long run.”
SLEEP CAN ALSO KEEP
YOU SLIMMER... Studies show people who sleep fewer hours tend to weigh significantly more than those who get eight hours plus.
Indeed, a shorter nightly sleep quota is one of the strongest risk factors for obesity.
One review of sleep studies by medical research charity Cochrane found that people who slept less than six hours per night had up to a 90 per cent higher risk of obesity than those who slept eight hours per night.
The reason is linked to several factors including increased appetite and not having enough energy to exercise.
“Research has found sleepdeprived people feel hungrier and
eat more calories over the course of the day,” agrees nutritionist Linda Foster. “And they also tend to pick less healthy, more sugary and high fat foods.”
This may be because lack of sleep increases the body’s levels of “hunger hormone” ghrelin.