When it comes to heart health, having enough of it is very important

Cardiovascular health is no joke. It is the number one cause of death in the United States. And now the American Heart Association has added an important step to make sure our hearts are healthy.

Heart health is affected by a variety of behaviors, such as: B. what we eat and whether or not we lead an active lifestyle. This includes getting enough sleep, a relatively simple requirement that is becoming increasingly difficult to meet in our modern world.

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Circulation magazine published an updated American Heart Association cardiovascular health checklist. Adequate sleep is one of the “Life’s Essential 8” according to the AHA. This list, formerly called Life’s Essential 7, is a questionnaire used since 2010 that measures respondents’ top concerns to determine their cardiovascular health. Items in the list include diet, physical activity, nicotine consumption, body mass index, blood lipids, blood pressure and blood sugar.

Researchers discovered that poor sleep is linked to obesity, diabetes and a host of health problems. They explained that adults should get 7 to 9 hours of sleep a night. These hours of sleep must be continuous for the body to enter its three stages of non-REM sleep.

There have long been links between sleep and heart health, and the inclusion of sleep on the AHA checklist validates its importance.

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A previous study published in the European Heart Journal shows that bedtime affects heart health, with people who went to bed between 11 and 11:59 a.m. having a lower risk of heart disease than those who went to bed after midnight went to bed. The researchers theorized that this is due to people’s circadian rhythms, which may be disrupted by earlier wake times.