The sleep habit most strongly linked to deadly conditions such as dementia and heart disease is irregular sleep, going to bed and waking up at inconsistent times, or frequently changing how long you sleep each night. Even if someone gets enough total hours of rest, constantly shifting between short nights and long nights or changing bedtimes disrupts the body’s circadian rhythm, the internal clock that regulates blood pressure, metabolism, and brain function.
Studies show that people with highly irregular sleep patterns are almost twice as likely to develop cardiovascular diseases like heart attacks and strokes compared to those with steady sleep schedules.In addition, chronic lack of sleep, regularly getting six hours or less, further increases the risk of dementia, especially if it happens during midlife. Poor-quality sleep also matters: when the brain misses out on deep, slow-wave sleep, it cannot properly clear away harmful proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease. Combined, these effects mean that irregular, insufficient, or low-quality sleep can set the stage for long-term damage to both the heart and the brain, making sleep regularity just as important as sleep duration.
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