16 December 2008

To Alarm or Not to Alarm?

If I go to bed and sleep normally, I usually get a little more than 8 hours of sleep. I once thought that this was okay because many people told me that you should get "at least eight hours of sleep."

According to WebMD, if I get over 8 hours of sleep per night, the risks of getting type 2 diabetes increases significantly: "A study in Diabetes Care shows men who got little sleep (up to five or six nightly hours) or a lot of sleep (more than eight hours per night) were more likely to develop diabetes than men with moderate amounts of nightly sleep."

Source: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/527652

I adjusted my lifestyle according once I read this. I use an alarm clock to wake me up 7.5 hours after I go to bed, ensuring that I do not get more than 8 hours of sleep.

However, I few weeks later I read a UK Daily Mail news article that claims that waking up to an alarm clock is bad for you because it can raise your blood pressure and lead to hypertension. Hypertension can lead to heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure.

"In a study conducted by the National Institute of Industrial Health in Japan, participants who were suddenly forced awake had higher blood pressure and heart rate than those allowed to wake up in their own time.

"Dr Chris Idzikowski of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre explains that subtle body changes that occur during sleep make us vulnerable in the early hours - and an alarm sounding only exacerbates this.

"During the later part of night, the body's general physiology is less well regulated. This means the fluctuations in blood pressure, heart rate and breathing are more extreme than usual. Also because you are lying relatively still, blood thickens up a bit more, with a degree of blood clotting."

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-412283/How-alarming-Your-bedside-clock-bad-health.html

So I face a dilemma. Either I set my alarm every night and face high blood pressure, which leads to cardiovascular disease or I do not set the alarm every night, oversleep, get diabetes, which can also leads to cardiovascular disease. So either way it seems as if I get cardiovascular disease anyway.

What can I do to resolve this dilemma?

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