by IDS Director of Patient Care and Education, Alicia Downs
Increase ZZZzz’s to reduce your BP – Studies show that a good night’s sleep may be a solid way to reduce hypertension risk
I often wonder why we are so quick to discredit the value of sound sleep as a key to wellness in American society.
Perhaps it is because we feel we should be “Doing” something. Sleep feels so passive, so uninvolved. We don’t sweat for it, or push for max reps, we don’t even cut it or load it! We “just” sleep. But don’t forget, healthy sleep makes up more than 1/3 of our lives! That fact alone should tell us that sleep is incredibly significant to our wellness. The only thing you will do in your life with more frequency than sleep is breathe!
You won’t even spend more time working than sleeping! So, pay attention to sleep! Sleep is critical to restoring our body to its baseline each and every day. It allows inflammatory hormones to drop, vascular pressures to normalize, and respirations to relax into better oxygen saturation to the brain. Blood flow increases to the extremities that we have forced into shoes and cramped postures all day.
Sleep also allows our brains to sort out the complex signals we have been bombarded with throughout our day and sort them out. Small surprise then that quality sleep has been linked to everything from reduced risk of dementia, improved memory and learning to improved digestion, mood growth, athletic performance and happiness with one’s life overall.
In a recent meta-analysis of 23 studies including over 173 thousand participants strong correlations were found between participants who got 6-7 hours of sleep and those who were diagnosed with hypertension.
- In women and those under age 60, those who got 6 hours of less daily had even higher hypertension rates!
- Meanwhile, across all ages and genders, those persons who got an average of 8 hours of sleep each night had significantly lower rates of hypertension.
As people with diabetes, our cardiovascular health is of increased concern. Simply having a diabetes diagnosis increases our cardiovascular incidence risks. We should be on the lookout for any means at our disposal to reduce those risks. Particularly if those means come without side effects, they are free of charge, and have dozens or even hundreds of additional benefits! Healthy sleep is one of the top interventions we can seek out!
As a nurse, my clients ask me all the time what I think about statins, what I think about hypertension medications, what I think about ACEs vs ARBs. Those are complex multifactored conversations, but I can say with zero reservation for every single patient. A good night’s sleep of 8 -10 hours per night is a solid prescription for better health!
How to get a solid 8 -10 hours of sleep per night
- Reduce screen time by at least 1 hour ahead of bedtime (including TV bright light and rapid eye movement excites the brain and confuses the sleep-wake cycle)
- Have a nightly routine that allows your body and brain to get the message that it is time to shift into “sleep mode” (Any parent can tell you this works wonders!)
- Disconnect from high-level thought activities, don’t engage in problem-solving, learning, or engaging activities for an hour before bed. If these things come up try to journal them or make a note of the thoughts to deal with them in the morning. (keep a pad at the bedside to get things “off your mind” if you wake at night)
- Be as regimented about your sleep as you would about any other area of your wellness, it is just as (if not more) important.
- Sleep in a dark room, try not to have lighted clocks in your view.
- Try to separate sleep space from work/entertainment space if you can
- Sleep cool (it is recommended that your sleeping space be roughly 68 degrees Fahrenheit)
- Take your sleep health seriously. Snoring, startling awake or waking very tired or with a very dry or sore throat are all signs of sleep-related illnesses. Have them assessed by your physician and seek effective treatment.
- Don’t let diabetes wreck your sleep! From nighttime lows or sustained highs, to beeping tech, Diabetes can mangle our sleep patterns. Work with the team at IDS to eliminate your diabetes from troubling your sleep, so your sleep can stop troubling your diabetes management!
When Sleep and diabetes work together your entire wellness picture can be a real sweet dream 😉
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