Sleeping Habits and blood pressure
Your sleeping habits may also have an effect on your blood pressure. New preliminary research suggests that staying awake during your usual sleeping time-trying to finish that Pocahontas costume for your niece or even just being out late-may create a surge of extra pressure in your blood vessels.
Everyone’s blood pressure goes down when they sleep and gets fired up again at waking time. But when 18 healthy people got a rotten night’s sleep-they went to bed 3 112 hours later than usual but stuck with their standard reveille-their pressures were significantly higher in the morning than they were after a standard, 8-hour night of sleep (although they still fell within normal range). Their heart rates were higher after a sleepdeprived night, too (America Journal of Hypertension, May 1996). No one knows for sure whether these morning-after power surges mean persistent hypertension later. Or whether these spikes may be one of the culprits behind the large number of heart attacks that occur in the morning. Of course, no one’s going to recommend these surges as any kind of healthful therapy, either. The pressure jump in the study is a pretty clear sign that burning the midnight oil (or party lights) stresses out your system, says blood-pressure researcher Jerome Markovitz, M.D., at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
As a stressor, sleep deprivation might increase adrenaline and therefore drive up blood pressure and especially heart rate. That could be because the body has to work overtime just trying to keep itself awake, says sleep expert Michael Bonnet, Ph.D., professor of neurology at Wright State University School of Medicine, Dayton, Ohio.
Such pressure spikes may have immediate implications if you prefer early-morning doctor visits. Pressure measured after a bad night may go on record as higher than usual. If you’re monitoring your pressure yourself and some morning readings are sky high, note whether or not you had a bad night’s sleep. If it seems that you’re noting a bad night’s sleep every night, try clearing your schedule. Scores of Americans walk around at near-zombie levels, chasing sleep as though it were a mirage. See if someone else can do the laundry for a change. See how much of that costume you agreed to make for your niece comes readymade. As Thoreau said, “Simplify, simplify, simplify.” It may take a lot of the pressure off.