According to study, who sleeps little is four times more likely to get sick

Last month, we had already talked about the relationship between getting little sleep and feeling less happy and less intelligent, as you can check out this link. Now new research shows that you should take this story of getting enough sleep even more seriously if you don't already. This is because there is a direct relationship between getting little sleep and being more likely to get sick.

Sheldon Cohen, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, found in 2009 that poor sleep is associated with a greater chance of catching a cold. Now, with the help of researchers from other institutions, he has been able to prove that poor sleep is directly associated with an increased risk of becoming ill.

The proof is in the article recently published in the scientific journal Sleep, which specializes in research related to sleep. In the text, the researchers explain how they used sleep time measurements from 164 volunteers with different backgrounds - smokers, moods, alcohol users, and various stress levels - to reach this conclusion.

Sleeping is good

Instead of depriving patients of their usual sleeping hours, scientists allowed them to sleep normally. The sleep hours of each were continuously recorded for one week to determine an average. Then the volunteers were all quartered in a hotel and received the common flu virus through a solution dripped through their nasal passages.

They were then monitored for another week, with nasal mucus samples taken daily during this period. Individuals who slept less than six hours a day were 4.2 times more likely to fall ill than those who had more than seven hours of sleep daily, regardless of whether they smoke, drink, or have high levels of stress.

Those who sleep less than five hours a day are 4.5 times more likely to fall ill, according to the study. Race and level of education or income of the people who participated in the experiment also did not influence the outcome as much as the rest time. As a result, researchers expect people to pay more attention to sleep as a factor in maintaining good health, in addition to diets and exercise.

Do you usually sleep on average how many hours a day? And do you get sick often? Comment on the Mega Curious Forum