No matter how comfortable it is to snuggle up inside your blanket on a cold winter morning and hibernate for an entire day, research says that it could actually be ‘killing’ you.
Yes, you read that right. A study by the University of Sydney has shown that sleeping for more than 9 hours puts you at a higher risk of dying young.
As strange as that might sound, the study says that those who sleep more than 9 hours a night, sit more than 7 hours a day, and exercise less than 150 minutes a week are four times more likely to die young compared to people who have healthier habits.
Dr Melody Ding, the author of the study, said, “When you add a lack of exercise into the mix, you get a type of “triple whammy” effect. Our study shows that we should really be taking these behaviours together as seriously as we take risk factors such as levels of drinking and unhealthy eating patterns.”
The study was conducted on 231,048 Australians aged 45 and above. The goal was to determine what lifestyle patterns contribute the most to premature deaths in case of middle-aged adults.
The questionnaire highlighted behaviours such as smoking, drinking and too much or too little sleep. And the results found were quite shocking.
Smoking, alcohol intake and less sleep were found slightly less harmful than being physically inactive and sleeping too much!
Source: khurki.net
Being physically inactive and sitting too much was the second most deadly combination, with smoking and high alcohol intake being the third way you could die early.
“The take-home message from this research – for doctors, health planners and researchers – is that if we want to design public health programs that will reduce the massive burden and cost of lifestyle-related disease we should focus on how these risk factors work together rather than in isolation,” said the co author of the study, Professor Adrian Bauman.