- A new study found that when sleep is restricted to 5 hours per night, heart rate and blood pressure worsen over the course of the week in young men.
- Researchers found that attempting to get extra sleep over the 2 nights of the weekend may be insufficient to dial back the hits to an individual’s cardiovascular health.
- Researchers measured participants’ heart rate and blood pressure multiple times throughout the day.
- The participants’ heart rates and systolic blood pressure changed with each day of too little sleep and did not return to baseline by the end of the recovery period.
A third of adults in the United States report getting less than the recommended amount of sleep, according to the
A new study led by researchers at Penn State suggests that when sleep is restricted during the work week, it may impact an individual’s heart rate and systolic blood pressure.
Additionally, the research suggests attempts to catch up on sleep over the weekend may not be enough to bring back cardiovascular health back to baseline.
The research was published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.
An interest in the effects of sleep on cardiovascular health drove David Reichenberger, a graduate student in biobehavioral health at Penn State, to design this study.
For the research, he used data sourced by Dr. Anne-Marie Chang, associate professor of biobehavioral health at Penn State, who had conducted an 11-day inpatient sleep study a few years ago.
For the study, participants went from sleeping up to 10 hours a night to being restricted to 5 hours a night over 5 nights.
“I just really wanted to see what are the effects during this potential work week on someone’s blood pressure and heart rate,” Reichenberger explained to Medical News Today.
Researchers recruited 15 healthy men between the ages of 20 and 35 who lived in Pennsylvania. They excluded participants who had medical or mental health diagnoses, took medicine or…
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