How Regularity Of Sleep Can Be Even More Important Than Duration

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Sleep is, of course, very important for health. But as it turns out, sleep regularity may have more of an impact than sleep duration.

  • Today’s main feature examines a very large observational study that found a 26% difference in the risk of major cardiovascular events, based on people’s sleep schedules.

• As we age, our collagen levels tend to get depleted more easily. Collagen is important not just for youthful good looks, but also for the health of bones and joints.

  • Today’s sponsor NativePath are offering high-quality collagen without additives or harmful impurities

• Today’s featured book is about healing trauma—most notably in the case of PTSD.

Read on to learn more about these things, or click here to visit our archive

A Word To The Wise

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Food Expiration Dates Don’t Mean What Most People Think They Mean

Have you ever wondered why rock salt that formed during the Precambrian era has a label on it saying that it expires next month?

To take something more delicate, how about eggs that expire next Thursday; isn't that oddly specific for something that is surely affected by many variables?

What matters, and what doesn't?

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Wildcard Wednesday

How Regularity Of Sleep Can Be Even More Important Than Duration

A recent, large (n=72,269) 8-year prospective* observational study of adults aged 40-79 has found an association between irregular sleep and major cardiovascular events.

*this means they started the study at a given point, and measured what happened for the next eight years—as opposed to a retrospective study, which would look at what had happened during the previous 8 years.

As to what qualifies as major cardiovascular events, they counted:

• Heart attack

• Cardiac arrest

• Stroke

• Cardiovascular death (any)

Irregular sleep, meanwhile, was defined per a bell curve of participants. Based on a sleep regularity index (SRI) score, those with a score of 87 or more were on the “regular” side of the curve, and those with a score of 72 or lower were on the “irregular” side of the curve.

What they found is that irregular sleep is associated with major cardiovascular events, regardless of the actual amount of sleep that people got. So in other words, you could be sleeping 9 hours per day, but if it’s a different 9 hours each day, your cardiovascular risk will still be higher.

How much higher?

• For those in the middle of the curve (so, moderate irregularity), it was 8% higher than those on the “regular” side.

• For those on the “irregular” side of the curve, it was 26% higher than those on the “regular” side.

All of the above is after taking into account confounding variables such as age, physical activity levels, discretionary screen time, fruit, vegetable, and coffee intake, alcohol consumption, smoking, mental health issues, medication use, and shift work. Which is quite something, given that shift work is a very common reason for irregular sleep schedules in a lot of people.

Limitations

While, as noted above, they did their best to account for a lot of things, this was an observational study, not an interventional study or a randomized controlled trial, and as such, it cannot truly establish cause and effect.

For example, an observational study in the 90s found that the sport most strongly associated with longevity was polo. For any unfamiliar, it’s a game played on horseback with mallets and balls. Why was this game so much better than, say, swimming? And the answer is most likely that polo is played almost entirely by very rich people. It wasn’t the sport that enhanced longevity—it was the wealth.

So similarly here, it could be for example that people who are predisposed to heart conditions, are prone to having irregular schedules. We won’t know for sure until we have interventional studies (and we probably can’t get RCTs for this, for practical reasons).

Still, it seems likely that the association is indeed causal, in which case, having a regular sleep schedule if at all possible seems like a very good way to look after one’s health.

You can read more about the study here:

Irregular sleep may elevate risk of major cardiovascular events

Practical take-away

This study strongly suggests that sleep regularity is even more important than sleep duration.

This means that there is extra reason to not sleep in past one’s normal getting-up time, even if one had a less restful night.

That’s the end of sleep that’s the most important in practical terms, too, because we can control our getting-up time, whereas we can’t really control our going-to-sleep time, because it’s perfectly possible to just lie there awake.

So, controlling the getting-up time is really the key to the whole thing. See also:

Calculate (And Enjoy) The Perfect Night’s Sleep

And for scope, you might enjoy reading:

Morning Larks vs Night Owls: How Much Can We Control Our Sleep Schedule?

Enjoy!

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Bonus (Sponsored) Recommendation

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One-Minute Book Review

Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body – by Dr. Peter Levine

Dr. Levine’s better-selling book about trauma, Waking The Tiger, laid the foundations for this one, but the reason we’re skipping straight into Healing Trauma, is that while the former book is more about the ideas that led him to what he currently believes is the best approach to healing trauma, this book is the one that explains how to actually do it.

The core thesis is that trauma is a natural, transient response, and is not inherently pathological, but that it can become so if not allowed to do its thing.

This book outlines exercises, trademarked as “somatic experiencing”, which allow the body to go through the physiological processes it needs to, to facilitate healing. If you buy the physical book, there is also an audio CD, which this reviewer has not listened to and cannot comment on, but the exercises are clearly described in the book in any case.

The physical aspects of the exercises are similar to the principles of progressive relaxation, while the mental aspects of the exercises are about re-experiencing trauma in a safer fashion, in small doses.

Any kind of dealing with trauma is not going to be comfortable, so this book is not an enjoyable read.

As for how useful the exercises are, your mileage may vary. Like many books about trauma, the expectation is that once upon a time you were in a situation that was unsafe, and now you are safe. If that describes your trauma, you will get the most out of this. However, if your trauma is unrelated to your personal safety, or if it is about your personal safety but the threat still remains extant, then a lot of this may not help and may even make things worse.

In terms of discussing sexual trauma specifically, it was probably not a good choice to favorably quote Woody Allen, and little things like that may be quite jarring for a lot of readers.

Bottom line: if your trauma is PTSD of the kind “you faced an existential threat and now it is gone”, then chances are that this book can help you a lot. If your trauma is different, then your mileage may vary widely on this one.

Click here to check out Healing Trauma, if it seems right for you!

Penny For Your Thoughts?

Wishing you a wonderful Wednesday full of wellness,

The 10almonds Team