Sweat and snooze for a longer cruise!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Some people are ALWAYS sleeping! Others don’t seem to need it. But sleeping too much or too little actually LOWERS life expectancy. Could exercise help?
Enter Dr. Jihui Zhang and team from the Guangdong Cardiovascular Institute in China. They studied the effects of BOTH exercise and sleep on lifespan.
Researchers studied over NINETY THOUSAND adults around sixty years young. Smartwatches recorded sleep quality and physical activity for about a week. They gave the participants’ lifestyle a score. Sleeping between six and eight hours got them top sleeping marks. Physical activity was scored using standardized guidelines. The team monitored participants’ health across seven years.
And? Sufficient exercise and moderate sleep were associated with a prolonged life expectancy. A two-for-one deal! The effects of physical activity and rest combined had a greater impact than when looking at each thing separately.
So: keep calm… work out… and sleep well!
References:
Liang, Y. Y., Feng, H., Chen, Y., Jin, X., Xue, H., Zhou, M., Ma, H., Ai, S., Wing, Y.-K., Geng, Q., & Zhang, J. (2023). Joint Association of Physical Activity and sleep duration with risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality: A population-based cohort study using accelerometry. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjpc/zwad060