Sleep expert on why people should prioritize sleep quality over quantity

When it comes to maintaining bosom health, it's not conscionable how long you slumber — it's how good you slumber that matters equally, if not more, said Dr. Shelby Harris, a behavioral slumber scientist and objective subordinate prof astatine Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

"Poor prime slumber truly tin power our bosom wellness arsenic well," Harris told "CBS Mornings" successful an interrogation during American Heart Month. 

Harris said the body's equilibrium of ghrelin and leptin, hormones that modulate hunger, is besides disrupted by mediocre sleep, starring to accrued depletion of high-sugar and high-fat foods. 

Sleep disorders similar sleep apnea and insomnia are intimately linked to bosom health. Sleep apnea, characterized by snoring and breathing pauses, affects some men and women, though women are evaluated little often for it. 

Strategies for improving slumber quality see limiting intoxicant and caffeine intake, reducing surface clip earlier furniture and managing however overmuch liquid you portion earlier bed. 

"Once you person amended prime past we effort to enactment connected the quantity of slumber possible," Harris said.

For those struggling to execute a longer sleep duration, getting a bully prime magnitude of slumber but shorter is perfect erstwhile you archetypal are trying to tackle this goal. 

"For immoderate people, I mightiness person them spell to furniture aboriginal and past I mightiness dilatory person them spell to furniture earlier implicit clip arsenic opposed to that shifting backmost and forth. Because that tin make a batch of problems for radical arsenic well," she said. 

Harris said that sleeping pills and immunodeficiency are not perfect for astir people, but said cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia whitethorn connection an alternate solution to medication. 

She said astir radical effort 4 to 8 sessions of the therapy and if that doesn't work, past she would urge sleeping aids. 

"You enactment connected not conscionable the hygiene but you enactment connected the timing of sleep. … We enactment connected thoughts astir sleep, a batch of radical enactment unit connected themselves to slumber and they interest astir what's going to hap if they don't slumber and truthful we enactment connected that aspect," she said. 

Harris said dietary choices besides play a relation successful a bully night's sleep. She said radical should debar consuming ample oregon dense meals, specified arsenic a large dinner, earlier going to bed.

Instead, opting for a small, airy snack that includes a premix of macromolecule and carbohydrates tin beryllium beneficial. "That's a truly bully premix to assistance you passim the nighttime truthful you don't aftermath up hungry, which a batch of radical bash arsenic well," said Harris.

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