Enough Sleep, Lower Blood Pressure

Are you struggling with high blood pressure? If yes, it could be too much or too little sleep!

Recent research at the Boston University School of Medicine found that people who were sleeping above or below the recommended hours of daily sleep have an increased risk for hypertension.

Dr. Daniel Gottlieb, MD, MPH studied the responses of 2,813 men and 3,097 women, aged 40 to 100 years, to a questionnaire on sleep habits. He discovered that, compared to people sleeping between 7 and 8 hours per night, those sleeping less than 6 and between 6 and 7 hours per night, as well as those sleeping between 8 and 9 and 9 or more hours per night, had an increased prevalence of hypertension.

Gottlieb wrote "It suggests that adequate total sleep duration should be tested as a non-pharmacologic treatment modality in the management of patients with hypertension." Translated, that means that getting the right amount of sleep can be a good adjunctive treatment to your blood pressure pills. How do you know how much sleep you need? Try this little experiment:

• Determine what time you need to wake up; that is, without using the snooze button, what is the absolute last time you can wake?
• Now count backwards in units of 90-100 minutes 5 times. So count backwards 400-500 minutes
• If you must wake by 7:00am, going back 500 minutes says you need to go to bed at 11:00. When you wake you should feel well rested, and hopefully your blood pressure will be as well!

Try this method. If your blood pressure is lower, post a comment letting me know!

Related Topics: WebMD Video: Salt Hormone: New Clue to High Blood Pressure Risk, Time to Wake Up about Sleep Problems

Technorati Tags: high blood pressure, hypertension, sleep

Sleep yourself skinny

An interesting article has recently come out in the journal, Obesity Reviews. In it the authors talk about how much weight you can lose by just adding 1 more hour of sleep to your day.

Dr. Michael Sivak of the University of Michigan explained that "a person who sleeps seven hours a night and consumes 2,500 calories during the rest of the day can trim 147 calories simply by replacing an hour of "inactive wakefulness" with an hour more of sleep - or about 14 pounds a year."

This is great news for those of us who are interested in losing a few of those unwanted pounds. Interestingly, Dr. Sivak found that people tend to eat during periods of wakefulness and inactivity. Each additional hour of sleep he estimates reduces caloric intake by about 6%.

If this does not motivate some people to sleep more, then I do not know what will.

For more on this subject see my new book Good Night: The Sleep Doctor's Guide to Better Sleep and Better Health on Amazon.com.

Related Topics: The Dream Diet: Losing Weight While You Sleep, Lose Weight with Morning Exercise

Technorati Tags: sleep, weight loss