Good news for insomniacs:
A six-year study Kripke headed up of more than a million adults ages 30 to 102 showed that people who get only 6 to 7 hours a night have a lower death rate than those who get 8 hours of sleep.
But what about those of us who sleep about 5 hours a night (you know, bloggers)?
The Cancer Prevention Study II even showed that people with serious insomnia or who only get 3.5 hours of sleep per night, live longer than people who get more than 7.5 hours.
Aw-riiiight! Good-bye Ambien, hello happiness! (Just don’t ring my phone after ten, okay?)
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9 Comments
1. Skookumchuk:Yes! As one who is in bed at ten and up by 5:30, such wonderful news fitting all my preconceptions simply must be true.
Actually, insomnia and red wine virtually assures immortality.
Mar 24, 2006 - 5:45 pm 2. Skookumchuk:Oh wait. I guess it’s just the red wine, then.
Mar 24, 2006 - 5:48 pm 3. Buddy Larsen:I feel like Lloyd Bridges in “Airplane!” — “I picked a helluva time to quit amphetamines.”
Mar 24, 2006 - 6:27 pm 4. CraigC:A six-year study Kripke headed up of more than a million adults ages 30 to 102 showed that people who get only 6 to 7 hours a night have a lower death rate than those who get 8 hours of sleep.
Lower than 100%?
Mar 24, 2006 - 7:58 pm 5. Wallace:Yes those people who only get 5-6 hour may live a tad longer, but they’re very, very tired when they finally succumb.
Mar 24, 2006 - 8:37 pm 6. Buddy Larsen:yeh–you may or may not live longer, but either way it’ll sure seem longer.
Mar 24, 2006 - 9:02 pm 7. triticale:\:-)
It isn’t three score and ten which you are allotted, but X number of hours of sleep. Once you have slept that many hours, time’s up.
Not my theory; that of a former supervisor’s sister’s boyfriend.
But seriously, does midday napping count?
Mar 25, 2006 - 5:20 am 8. Barry Dauphin:Sleep Duration as a Predictor of All-Cause Mortality: Results of the Japan Collaborative Cohort Study
The study involved 104,010 subjects in Japan . All subjects reported their average sleep duration during the week at baseline and then were followed for an average of 10 years. A strength of this study was that the researchers measured perceived mental stress as a potential covariate of mortality and sleep duration. The researchers also adjusted for many other factors known to be associated with mortality such as smoking, alcohol use, physical activity, marital status, and education.
They found that the average reported sleep duration was between 7 and 7.5 hours for men and women. The highest mortality rate was found in people who slept 10+ hours, followed by those who slept less than four hours, then those who slept 9 hours, and finally those who slept 5 hours. When the researchers adjusted of mental stress, the relationship between elevated mortality and sleeping less than 7 hours disappeared in men (meaning that elevated death rate for those who slept 4 or 5 hours per night was due to mental stress and not shortened sleep) and in women sleeping between and 4 and 7 hours.
Roger, weren’t you in Japan last year? Oh, science–always giving us contradictory studies. It’s enough to make you lose sleep.
Mar 25, 2006 - 6:37 am 9. LemonDrop:I’m sorry but I’ll keep my Ambien CR. Better living thru chemistry, ya know…
Mar 27, 2006 - 3:07 pm