I’m a big advocate for the importance of sleep, and have written these articles for you over the past year or two on how important sleep is:
- How Sleep Affects Your Heart Health
- Missing Just One Hour Of Sleep Skyrockets Your Risk Of Depression, Anxiety
- Sleep Increases Your Recovery From Depression
- Sleep: An Easy Way To Prevent Asthma
- Sleep A Key Factor In ADHD
- Sleep Dramatically Impacts Your Weight
- Poor Sleep Equals Weight Gain, Even For Children
- Poor Sleep Linked to Alzheimers: 9 Ways To Fix It.
And now we can add a few more reasons to get a good night’s sleep to the list:
- decreasing heart attack and stroke risk
- decreasing suicide risk
- decreasing risk of preterm birth
- and decreasing risk of childhood obesity and diabetes.
Cardiovascular disease
Dr. Fernandez Mendoza presented research on his study of sleep duration and it’s effect on heart attack and stroke outcomes at the 2017 SLEEP meeting: 31st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.
He looked at over 1,700 patients over a 16 year period and found that adults who get less than 6 hours of sleep a night have significantly worse outcomes in morbidity and mortality with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease (heart attack and stroke.)
In fact, the risk of dying from heart attack or stroke literally DOUBLED in patients who routinely slept less than 6 hours a night.
Metabolic Syndrome
This study was followed by another study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association in May 2017, where researchers found that short sleep duration at night doubled the risk of death in patients with metabolic syndrome.
Suicide Risk
Published June 2107 in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, researchers looked at over 4,800 college aged young adults, analyzing their sleep habits and suicide risk, and found that poor sleep was a stronger predictor of suicide risk than depressed mood was.
Which is interesting, because sleep can potentially be a more useful flag for suicide risk than mood and sleep may also be a more treatable therapeutic target than depression, or at the very least, adjustive therapy.
The good thing about sleep therapy is that, unlike other risk factors for suicide, there is very little stigma associated with sleep disturbance and is highly treatable.
Preterm Birth
Published in Obstetrics & Gynecology Sept 2017, a new study finds that sleep disorders increased risk for premature birth. Researchers looked at data on almost 3 million women in California from 2007 to 2012, and matched their risk for preterm birth with history of sleep disorder diagnosis.
Having a diagnosed sleep disorder raised their risk for going into preterm labor and giving birth prematurely by 70% — almost double the risk of women with no history of sleep disorders. The risk for premature rupture of membranes was 4 times the risk for women without sleep disorders. Sleep apnea more than double the risk of early preterm birth.
Note to clinicians — let’s screen pregnant women for sleep issues and offer non-pharmacological support for addressing insomnia and/or sleep apnea.
Childhood diabetes
Published Sept 2017 in Pediatrics, researchers following over 4,500 children (ages 9 & 10 years old) in the UK found that there was an inverse relationship between sleep and BMI, insulin levels and insulin resistance.
For every extra hour of sleep, BMI and fat mass declined by roughly 2%, insulin levels were 3% lower, and insulin resistance dropped by 3% as well. Getting extra sleep significantly reduced a child’s risk for insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and excess body fat.
We already know that’s true because I’ve blogged about this over a year ago — the fact that even one extra hour of sleep is so important for children — you can read that article right here.
Taken together, these medical study show that we need to take even mild sleep impairment very very seriously. My recommendation is to sleep grounded.

To take your sleep resonance to the next level, you can support your brain’s healing alpha state with the resonant energy of the Earth…
…simply by sleeping grounded.
Which is why November’s Grounding Box is a Hibernation Theme!
If you’ve ever wanted to try sleeping grounded, November’s Box is going to be full of holistic products that help you get that super important, super healing deep sleep all winter long.
An advanced carbon based grounding band that you can use on your bed for years and years and years, plus all natural magnesium lotion to help relax tense muscles, and more fun surprises are all included at over 50% off the retail price.
Grab your Hibernation Grounding Box by signing up here!
There is only one more week to sign up in time to grab November’s Hibernation Box, so click over here right now to reserve your box today.
xoxox, Laura