Even if you’re someone who enjoys a daily workout, doesn’t smoke, and has no family history of heart disease, 2019 research findings published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology show that healthy lifestyle habits may not be enough to ward off your risk for heart attack if you’re undersleeping or oversleeping.
Over the course of seven years, researchers followed up with 461,000 middle-aged and older adults from UK Biobank who had no history of heart attack to find out that those who snoozed for over nine hours a night were at a 34% increased risk of heart attack. Sleeping for ten hours each night was found to double their risk of heart attack. Findings were slightly different, however, for people who were genetically predisposed to cardiovascular disease. Instead, the risk of heart attack dropped by 18% in these individuals, who reported sleeping between six and nine hours a night.
One proposed theory as to why this relationship exists is that oversleeping may promote inflammation in the body. Inflammation is a potential contributing factor to heart disease.