(RxWiki News) A recent study from the Cleveland Clinic reported people getting six to nine hours of sleep per night were much more likely to have a high quality of life with less symptoms of depression.
Principal investigator Dr. Charles Bae, neurologist at the Cleveland Clinic Sleep Disorders Center in Ohio reports that these results are important as they provide additional information to the building body of evidence regarding just how important getting a good night's sleep is.
People may already have an inkling that their quality of life is directly impacted by not getting enough sleep, but getting too much sleep also effects one negatively.
"Optimal sleep leads to feelings of satisfaction and happiness."
Bae explains that the impact of sleeping under six hours and over nine hours are essentially the same: a decrease in life quality and an increase in symptoms of depression. Bae hypothesized before the results of the study that quality of life would be impacted by both too much and too little sleep, but he was surprised to see how similar the impact in both groups was.
The researchers analyzed data from 10,654 patient records whose mean age was about 52 years old. Quality of life was graded using the EQ-5D questionnaire. There was also a nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire which screened for depression. Short sleep in this case meant less than six hours of sleep and long sleep meant more than nine hours of sleep.
Results showed that people with a "normal" sleep duration of six to nine hours per night reported high scores for quality of life and low scores for depression severity compared to patients who sleep too little or too much.
The differences were significant in all comparisons. Also, patients with perfect health comprised a higher percentage of normal sleepers and also had significantly happier lives and lower depression incidents.
The results were presented at SLEEP 2011, the 25th Anniversary Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS).
