Bedtime Can Affect Your Risk of Hypertension – A considerable increase in the chance of having high blood pressure was shown to be associated with going to bed just 34 minutes later, according to recent research published in the medical journal HypertensionTrusted Source.

The bulk of the study’s authors, who are from Adelaide, Australia’s Flinders University, examined whether or not those with irregular sleep patterns had a higher risk of hypertension or high blood pressure.

READ ALSO – Cook High BP Meals Without Seasoning Cubes – COURSE DELIVERY

Bedtime Can Affect Your Risk of Hypertension, What Study Reveals

The participants were part of a global sample that was examined for nine months, which, in comparison to earlier studies of this kind, was a long period.

12,287 persons between the ages of 38 and 62 were involved in the study; 88% of them were men, and all of them met the criteria for being overweight, according to the researchers.

To establish the link, the researchers combined regular blood pressure records with a below-the-mattress sleep monitoring device.

Regardless of how much sleep you get, they discovered that having irregular sleep patterns may increase your risk of high blood pressure by 9% to 17%. The researchers found that even little differences in bedtime, as little as 34 minutes, from night to night, could result in a 32% greater risk of high blood pressure.

The benefit of research like this, according to Dr. Allen J. Taylor, chief of cardiology at MedStar Heart and Vascular Center, is that they provide more information to help patients seeking medical care understand how rest can affect their risk of hypertension.

Taylor and his friends view the connection between sleep and hypertension as a component of a larger behavioral change framework that also encompasses other domains.

“I think just like diet … sleep is something we all do every day. So like, we recommend any sort of lifestyle practices to improve our health. And that could include diet and exercise. Sleep is one of the strategies and stress [level] is another good example.”

Various Factors That Contribute to High Blood Pressure

The potential influence of social determinants of health—aspects including gender, race, and socioeconomic status—on the findings is one area that the study doesn’t examine. Future research should incorporate it, says Dr. Karen D. Lincoln (Ph.D.), a professor at the University of California-Irvine Department of Environmental and Occupational Health.

“…When we talk about interventions and what are the things that we can do to target interventions or to increase [and] promote health, having a little bit more information about socioeconomic status; which is education, where people live, what people have access to; is important because eating better and, eating organic, some of those things are inaccessible to other populations.”

Lincoln says that she hopes that this area of research can delve into the indirect relationships that arise when it comes to sleep and hypertension, even though she is unsure of the study’s immediate impact within her work—at the intersection of African-American communities, cognitive impairment, and sleep—beyond confirming what is already known in the field.

“So, for example, people who are sleep deprived, who don’t sleep enough overall are more likely to engage in what we would call unhealthy behaviors, right? So you are more sedentary because you’re tired, you’re less likely to exercise, and you’re more likely to eat, comfort food, like salty foods, sweet foods, and things like that. And so sleep in and of itself, produces certain types of behaviors that can ultimately cause high blood pressure.”

Lincoln also suggests using geographic characteristics to help us comprehend the research area, such as the scarcity of grocery stores and public parks. In other words, irregular sleep—often referred to as sleep disruption in the US—has a ripple effect.

In conclusion, According to the latest research, uneven and irregular sleep may increase the risk of high blood pressure. Further research, according to experts, is necessary to confirm the results.

According to Taylor, the data supports the idea that irregular sleep patterns and hypertension are related. It’s time to go more into the physiological aspects of what is happening.

“I think the notion of what the mechanism [is], what’s happening here has its importance. Just so we can fill in the biological understanding between the observation and the associations that have been made.”