14 Apr 2023
Home Preventive Care Self Care Avoid these sleeping habits to protect your heart health
SELF CARE Avoid these sleeping habits to protect your heart health.
When you work 24 hours and do not get rest, your muscles start aching, leading to inflammation in your joints and bones. Imagine what will happen to your heart if your heart doesn’t get the rest it deserves after working for 24 hours. It will put strain and stress on your heart. So, the least you can do to help your heart recover is to get adequate sleep regularly.
How does sleep affect heart health?
Getting adequate sleep allows your heart to recover. Eight hours of sleep help pump a little extra blood as your body is at rest and using less amount of blood to perform day-to-day functions. Additionally, after 3-4 hours of digesting simple sattvic food, the heart gets proper rest. A fragmented, staggered and scattered heart with erratic heartbeats comes back to normal, regular and rhythmic heartbeats back into the flow, says the holistic coach.
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Night becomes a perfect opportunity to heal, become whole, repair, and restore. If this healing doesn’t happen properly, which means not getting enough sleep, whether it’s not at the right time of the day in the right hours of sleep, then obviously our repair, and elimination of toxins, and impurities won’t happen as they should. It can lead to disorders, and then diseases. If these impurities aren’t flushed out well, there is a good chance that toxins become heart problems. Additional fat that we accumulate in our body, especially in the arteries and the visceral fat, that our body produces in the organs tends to disturb the heart, adds Mehta.
Sleeping habits that put you at risk of developing heart disease
Odd sleeping hours
Not getting enough sleep can put you and your heart at risk. In fact, researchers have found that adults with inconsistent sleep habits were more likely to be at risk for other cardiovascular diseases such as poor circulation in the lower body, points out the expert.
As per research, people with sleep deprivations of over two hours per week, such as sleeping six hours on one night and eight hours on another, were more likely to have plaque in their coronary arteries than those with regular sleep habits. The best way to avoid such risks is to have regular sleep every night.
Spending too much time on smart screens
Raise your hand if you spend too much time on your phone or laptop! Many people spend too much time on their screens in this digital age which disturbs their circadian rhythm and their sleep-wake cycle. A disturbed sleep-wake cycle can disturb digestion, especially when you eat while looking at a television, phone or any other digital screen. This gets worse when you spend time looking at your phone before bed, says Mehta.
The key to adequate sleep and reducing heart disease risk is to eat at the right hour, which is before sunset and then sleep at least 4 hours after eating supper. Another essential part of reducing the risk is sleeping for 7-8 hours, which will repair your body to repair and restore.
How to get a good night’s sleep keep heart disease at bay?
1. Breathing properly
Breathing in and breathing out, slowly through the nose and out through the mouth. Large volumes of air can ease out and improve blood circulation. It can also improve the vital capacity of oxygen in your lungs and the saturation of oxygen immediately
2. Exercise regularly
Regular exercise helps you sleep better and improve your heart functions. Yoga asanas like Balasana, inversions like Viparita Karani, Ustrasana, Setu bandh asana, Bhujangasana, Paschimottanasana (for the feeling of letting go), and sitting Parvatasana (to raise your confidence high) are recommended for good sleep and improve your heart health.
3. Eat well
Another important thing is to eat a balanced diet to keep heart disease at bay. If you want to heal your erratic heart and help your heartbeat go back to normal, then you have to eat a healthy diet rich in nutrients in fibre, protein, and other minerals and vitamins.
Published in Health Shots