What Time You Go to Bed Can Impact Your Health
This may come as a surprise, but what time you go to bed can have a big impact on your health.
We all know that the duration and quality of your sleep is important.
When you go to sleep also makes a difference, according to new studies.
Researchers have correlated the time you go to bed with heart health. In a study that spanned more than five years and thousands of participants, it was found that the risk of heart disease varied according to bedtime.
People who were asleep by 11:00 p.m. had the lowest incidence of cardiovascular disease.
Here are the risk factors according to sleep time:
Those who went to sleep after midnight had a 25% higher incidence of heart disease in comparison.
Those who went to sleep between 11:00 and 12:00 had a 12% higher risk.
Falling asleep before 10:00 on a regular basis also presented a greater risk of heart disease — 25%, similar to those who fell asleep after midnight.
The researchers concluded "that the optimum time to go to sleep is at a specific point in the body's 24-hour cycle and deviations may be detrimental to health." (For more info, click here).
This connection shows correlation, not causation.
In other words, it is not known if going to bed at a certain time causes these outcomes.
However, there is a definite, if unknown, connection between the two.
It is thought that the reason for this relationship between bedtime and health is related to our circadian rhythm, the precise timing of our body functions according to the time of day.
Other cultures have long known about this relationship.
In Chinese Traditional Medicine, each organ’s functionality is mapped out according to the time of day.
The gallbladder and liver are at optimum function between 11:00 p.m. and 3:00 a.m. These two organs are involved with detoxification.
In modern sleep science, it is known that the beginning of the sleep cycle is when we get about two hours of deep sleep.
Deep sleep is when the body heals itself and detoxes — clearing out the build-up of harmful substances that have accumulated over the course of the day.
In Ayurvedic medicine from ancient India, body cycles are described in terms of the Doshas.
From 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. is the nighttime Pitta phase, the body performs an internal cleanse while you sleep.
Ancient peoples had no need to plan what time to go to bed; their energy naturally integrated with the setting sun and they were ready to sleep by 10:00 p.m.
We modern people have all kinds of distractions and busy schedules that force us to defer our downtime until later at night.
Blue light from screens and LED lighting interferes with the natural production of melatonin that would normally govern our inclination to sleep.
To maintain optimum health, we need to be aware of what our bodies need and govern our lives accordingly.