In a study of 10,308 civil servants in Britain aged 35 to 55, researchers were able to look for links between sleep time and causes of death for more than a 12-year period.
What they found was that decreasing or increasing your sleep time was linked to an increased risk of death. Basically, people who moved out of the 7 to 9 hours of recommended sleep (either less than 7 or more than 9) were more likely to die over the course of the study.
This doesn’t mean that sleep itself is to blame. Big shifts in sleep time are common in the case of illnesses, depression and other health conditions. In fact, medications to treat conditions can cause shifts in sleep time. It could be that sleep time is a marker for overall health. If sleep changes rapidly, it could be a sign that there is a major change in health.
If you find your sleep schedule shifting dramatically, talk to a doctor. You may have a health condition that needs treatment.
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Sources: Jane E. Ferrie, PhD; Martin J. Shipley, MSc; Francesco P. Cappuccio, MD; Eric Brunner, PhD; Michelle A. Miller, PhD; Meena Kumari, PhD; Michael G. Marmot, FFPHM. A Prospective Study of Change in Sleep Duration: Associations with Mortality in the Whitehall II Cohort. Volume 31 / Issue 5 / May 1, 2008.
