Don’t Sleep Catching More Z’s
How Catching More Z’s Can Improve Health and Longevity
By Jackie Kolgraf
If you’re looking for an excuse to spend more time in bed, this might be it …
High-quality sleep can add years to your life. Put on your pajamas and get under the covers while we explore the impact of nightly shut-eye on health and longevity.
Good Sleep Could Add Years
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends adults over the age of 18 get at least seven hours of sleep each night, noting that this number can help you avoid short-term and chronic illnesses, weight gain, and stress while improving your mood, heart health, metabolism, attention, and memory. Adequate sleep even lowers your risk of injury and death in motor vehicle crashes.
A 2024 study investigating the association between sleep patterns with mortality and life expectancy in over 172,000 people found that greater adherence to a low-risk sleep pattern may lead to significant gains in life expectancy among US adults.
Despite these guidelines and findings, though, the CDC’s Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a survey of adults that looks at health and risk behaviors, discovered that nearly 40% of US adults get insufficient sleep.
While many aspects of life can negatively impact your sleep quality – from busy schedules and loud locations to medications and sleep disorders – there are still things within your control you can do to try and sleep better and live a healthier, longer life.
Different Types of Sleep and Their Benefits
It may not seem like it, but your body achieves a lot while you’re asleep. Each of the four distinct and separate sleep stages provide their own health benefits.
According to Physiology, Sleep Stages, our bodies cycle through rapid eye movement (REM) and non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep stages approximately four to six times each night for an average of 90 minutes each. NREM sleep is further divided into three stages: light sleep, deeper sleep, and deepest non-REM sleep.
>> Light Sleep: Preparation
Consisting of about 5% of your nightly sleep, this short sleep stage happens when you’re beginning to relax and doze off. Light sleep is critical in getting you ready for the other three, deeper sleep stages by organizing your thoughts and quieting your brain and body.
>> Deeper Sleep: Memory Creation
Heart rate and body temperature drop during deeper sleep, which accounts for around 45% of your nightly sleep and is marked by something called sleep spindles, where bursts of brain activity (creating spindle-shaped waves during electroencephalography) aid in the creation of memories, and K-complexes, the longest and most distinct type of brainwaves which help maintain sleep.
>> Deepest Non-REM Sleep: Growth and Repair
This sleep stage is marked by delta brainwaves with lower frequencies and higher amplitudes. It aids in muscle, bone, and tissue growth and repair, as well as immune system strengthening. Your nightly amount of deepest non-REM sleep decreases with age but is usually around 25%.
The hardest sleep stage to wake from, deepest non-REM sleep is also when negative sleep experiences like night terrors and sleepwalking occur.
>> REM Sleep: Brain Development
During this final stage of sleep, brain waves mimic those during full wakefulness. Your eyes and diaphragm are the only parts of your body that usually move in this stage, which can be marked by dreaming, increased heart rate, and erratic breathing.
The Sleep Foundation recommends at least two hours of REM sleep per night for adults due to its positive effects on brain function, memory consolidation, and emotional health. REM sleep also helps prepare us for wakefulness, so we begin our day refreshed instead of groggy.
Impacts of Poor Sleep
Sleep deprivation isn’t just uncomfortable: it can be dangerous.
According to the Sleep Foundation, insufficient sleep negatively impacts your reaction times, attention span, judgment, and logical thinking. This can increase a person’s risk car accidents, mistakes, and health problems (like heart problems, immune disfunction, obesity, and cognitive difficulties.
It can also affect your mental health by increasing irritability, depression, and anxiety, leading to a reduction in social activity.
Things That Impact Sleep Quality
While good sleep can sometimes feel elusive in modern society, there are minor changes you can make to try to improve your sleep quality and therefore help lengthen your lifespan.
>> Timing
Remember when being a kid with a bedtime felt like punishment, and getting to stay up later as you got older was freedom? It turns out that going to bed and waking up at the same time every day is the foundation of a healthy sleep routine.
Take the first step toward improving your sleep by reestablishing a set sleep schedule just like you would for a child. The National Sleep Foundation notes that we tend to sacrifice sleep first when life gets busy, but failing to prioritize our sleep is a slippery slope that can lead to poor health outcomes.
“By prioritizing sleep in your life, you’re setting yourself up to get enough sleep to help feel great and be at your best,” they write.
Establish a nightly routine to begin winding down near your chosen bedtime. And set alarms to rouse you at a time in the morning that can work with your schedule every day of the week. Avoid staying up late or sleeping in just because your responsibilities shift from one day to the next. Consistency is key.
>> Environment
Johns Hopkins sleep expert Rachel Salas, M.D., says small choices around your sleep environment can have a powerful impact on your sleep quality.
For your bedroom, she suggests limiting outside light by using room-darkening window coverings, removing or blocking electronics that emit constant light (like that red power indicator light on your TV), and keeping a flashlight by your bed to use if you need to go to the bathroom to avoid turning on a lamp or overhead light.
She also recommends making your bed every day, replacing your mattress every 10 years, keeping pets out of the bed, and turning down the thermostat to 68°F if possible.
“Most people sleep better in temps around 68°F, though your ideal may fall between 54°F and 75°F,” Salas writes.
>> Blue Light
Your smartphone, computer, tablet, and television emit a type of light that makes it harder to fall asleep. But 90% of people in the US still use an electronic device before bedtime, according to UCLA Health.
A 2021 study of electronic device use before bedtime and sleep quality among 369 Vietnamese university students declared this a major public health issue. Nearly half of the students that were studied experienced poor sleep quality, while 98.1% reported using at least one type of electronic device (led by smartphones) every day within two hours before bedtime.
According to the study, “higher illuminance of light exposure, especially blue-enriched light before bedtime, was associated with more alertness, delayed phase, less slow-wave sleep, and prolonged sleep latency … Exposure to the light from screens in smartphones, computer, or tablets etc., which contain blue-enriched, short-length light, is similar to exposure under morning sunlight; this condition should be avoided before bedtime.”
When your eye believes it's perceiving sunshine, it sends signals to your brain that it’s time to wake up, confusing your internal clock at night when it’s time to go to sleep. It also impacts the release of the important sleep-regulating hormone melatonin. Delaying your sleep this way impacts every one of your subsequent sleep phases and can leave you feeling groggy and unrested the next day.
When establishing your bedtime routine, set a digital curfew at least an hour before you plan to go to sleep where you stop using all electronic devices. Read a book or listen to a guided meditation, calming podcast, or soundscape instead.
>> Food and Drink
In addition to your digital curfew, bedtime, and wake time, another important part of your end-of-day routine involves food and beverage consumption.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, late-night eating goes against your body’s circadian rhythm because “insulin resistance kicks up at night,” says registered dietitian Alexis Supan, RD. She recommends you stop eating at least three hours before bed, giving your body enough time to digest while also not causing you to go to bed hungry. If you absolutely must eat before bed, choose something with protein and healthy fat, like carrots with hummus or an apple with peanut butter, and avoid anything high in sugar, which can keep you awake.
Similarly, the Sleep Foundation recommends that alcohol consumption end three hours before bed. Coffee, tea, soda, energy drinks, or chocolate should also be avoided at least six hours before bedtime, according to a 2013 study on the effects of caffeine on sleep.
Drinking water, however, varies more from person to person. If you find drinking water close to bedtime causes you to use the bathroom more during the night (an experience called nocturia), consider stopping water consumption earlier to avoid disrupting your sleep. If you experience symptoms of dehydration at night and sleep better when you drink water close to bedtime, continue doing so.
>> Exercise
Many studies have shown a relationship between regular physical activity and improved sleep quality and duration.
A 2021 systematic review of these studies looked to provide evidence-based data on the association between physical activity on sleep quality. It concluded that exercise increased melatonin production, resulting in falling asleep faster and sleeping better. Exercise helped reduce stress, which can negatively impact falling and staying asleep. Plus, exercise improved mood, creating a positive feedback loop around physical activity. And exercise regulated body temperature, aiding in the drop that precedes sleepiness.
Improving Sleep to Improve Longevity
From processing new memories to aiding in cell restoration, sleep is a critical pillar of human health that shouldn’t be treated as a luxury or a low-risk sacrifice when life gets tough. Sleep must be a priority when a lack of it could lead to a lower quality of life, negatively affecting everything from your work performance to your physical wellbeing.
Thankfully, improving your sleep hygiene can positively impact many other elements of a healthy life – including limiting electronic usage, increasing exercise, eating healthy foods at the correct times, and reducing alcohol consumption — all of which impact lifespan.
Start making good sleep a priority and help give your body what it needs for a longer and healthier life.