Is This Sleep Habit KILLING You?

Lack of sleep can do more than just make you groggy and miserable…

It also increases your risk of mood changes, high blood pressure, weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, low sex drive, weakened immune system, and more.

If you’re struggling with sleep, there are steps you can take to increase the quality and quantity of your sleep. (Read about them here.)

In the meantime, researchers have just identified a simple way to cancel out the negative health effects of poor sleep.

Researchers conducted a long-term study of over 38,000 men and women. They had them complete questionnaires and various physical measurements that assessed their sleep behaviors and activity levels.

The researchers then assigned sleep scores based on factors like sleep duration, daytime sleepiness, insomnia, and snoring.

They also categorized the individuals based on high, moderate, low, or no physical activity.

Using the sleep and activity scores, the researchers were able to assess the risk of dying from any cause, or from heart disease, cancer, or stroke — common problems caused by lack of sleep and lack of physical activity independently.

What they found was that the lower the sleep score, the higher the risk of death from any cause at all, from all types of cardiovascular disease, and from a blood-clot-induced stroke.

But the people who had poor sleep scores and who didn’t do any moderate-to-vigorous physical activity fared worst of all.

Compared to those who had good sleep and lots of exercise, these individuals had the highest risk of death from any cause, from cardiovascular disease, and from any kind of cancer.

But here’s the really interesting part.

Performing moderate amounts of physical activity ELIMINATED the connection between poor sleep and mortality.

You can always take steps to improve your sleep.

But even if you feel like getting adequate sleep is out of your control, getting plenty of exercise is something you can do starting today.