Going to bed between 10 and 11 in the evening is good for the heart: if sleep begins or before or after, in fact, the cardiovascular risk rises.
The recommendation comes from a study just published in the European Heart Journal - Digital Health, the official journal of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC).
It is a large study that involved over 88,000 individuals with an average age of 61, whose sleep habits were monitored objectively by making them wear an accelerometer for several days to measure their activity and the times of awakening and falling asleep.
The study was led by David Plans of the University of Exeter in the UK.
"The results of the study - he says - suggest that going to bed too early or too late could destabilize the body's internal clock, with adverse effects on cardiovascular health."
Experts kept the sample under observation for almost six years on average;
in the follow-up period, the researchers recorded cardiovascular problems of various types (from heart attack to stroke, heart failure, etc.) in 3,172 individuals.
Well, it emerged that compared to those who went to sleep between 22 and 22.59, those who, on the other hand, went to bed at midnight or later had a 25% greater cardiovascular risk;
while the risk was 24% higher for those who went to bed before 10:00 in the evening.
"Our study indicates that the best time to go to bed is a specific time in our natural 24-hour sleep / wake cycle and that any deviation from the circadian rhythm could be detrimental to health. The riskiest time is after bed. midnight, probably because going to bed so late reduces the chances of being exposed to the morning light which is important for resetting our internal clock, "concluded Plans.