Going to bed even 30 minutes later than normal can lead to higher resting heart rates through most of the next day
TUESDAY, March 31, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Variability in bedtimes may be detrimental to cardiovascular health, according to a study published online March 23 in npj Digital Medicine.
Louis Faust, from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, and colleagues examined the association between bedtime regularity and resting heart rate (RHR) as a biomarker for cardiovascular health. The analysis included data from the Fitbit Charge HR, including bedtimes, sleep, and RHR from 557 college students (including 255,736 nights of data).
The researchers found that going to bed even 30 minutes later than one’s normal bedtime was associated with a significantly higher RHR throughout sleep (coefficient, +0.18), which persisted into the following day and converged with one’s normal RHR in the early evening. There was also a significant association for bedtimes of at least one hour earlier and higher RHRs throughout sleep; however, they converged with one’s normal rate by the end of the sleep session and did not extend into the following day.
“Through our study, we found that even if you get seven hours of sleep a night, if you’re not going to bed at the same time each night, not only does your resting heart rate increase while you sleep, it carries over into the next day,” a coauthor said in a statement.
Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
