Overview
Habitual short sleep duration (< 7 hours/night) increases the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality. Yet most adults, especially emerging adults (i.e., 18-25 years) do not achieve the National Sleep Foundation recommendation of 7-9 hours of sleep each night. Additionally, the American Heart Association recently included sleep duration in the "Life's Essential 8". This recent development emphasizes the importance of sleep and the need to advance our understanding of how sleep impacts cardiometabolic health (CMH), particularly in emerging adults, a population whose CVD risk trajectory is malleable. Specifically, emerging adulthood is a critical age window when age-related loss of CMH accelerates. Based on my previous work and others, both self-reported and objective measures of poor sleep (e.g., duration, variability) are linked to early signs of elevated CVD risk in emerging adults, such as microvascular dysfunction and elevated central blood pressure (BP), which precede the development of hypertension.
Description
The investigators aim to address the knowledge gap on whether sleep extension is a viable strategy to improve CMH in emerging adults with habitual short sleep duration. A prior study demonstrated the feasibility of sleep extension to improve BP and perceived sleepiness in predominantly normotensive emerging adults (18-23 years). Even without hypertension, reductions in BP are generally beneficial for CMH. The research hypothesis is that sleep extension (one extra hour in bed per night) will improve CMH and health behaviors in emerging adults who self-report < 7 hours of sleep per night. The primary aim is to determine if sleep extension is effective in improving BP. Investigators will assess CMH after habitual sleep (2 weeks) followed by a 2-week sleep extension intervention in 60 emerging adults (~30 female).
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
- 18 - 25 years old
- self-report sleeping less than 7 hours a night on average
- free from metabolic disease
- free from liver disease
- free from pulmonary disease
- free from cardiovascular disease
Exclusion Criteria:
- blood pressure higher than 140/80 mmHg
- BMI greater than 35 kg/m2
- use of blood thinners
- history of sleeping disorders
- no severe food allergies or eating disorders