Consider it permission to hit the snooze button—and say your life depends on it.
The Lancet is one of the most esteemed medical journals in the world—so if it’s tough to embrace the notion of getting more sleep as a long-term health strategy, just trust the team of 22 international health researchers who recently published findings about how powerful of a role a little more slumber can play in longevity…if you adopt a couple other good practices with it.
Hailing from Australia, the United Kingdom, Chile, and Brazil, the team analyzed information from more than 59,000 participants, with an average age of 64, whose data was kept in the UK Biobank public health database. For seven days, a subgroup from this sample wore trackers measuring their sleep and movement, while they also tracked their intake of healthy foods and some unhealthy items—”vegetables, fruits, grains, meats, fish, dairy, oils, and sugar-sweetened beverages,” specifically. Diet scores closest to 100 were considered the healthiest.
Over an average eight-year followup, participants who achieved the optimal combination—sleeping seven to eight hours per night, getting more than 42 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity daily, and scoring well on diet quality—gained an average of 9.35 additional years of life and 9.45 additional disease-free years. This means largely, individuals in this group gained nearly a decade more lifespan and stayed relatively healthy right up to the end of their lives, spent without conditions like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, COPD, or dementia.
But for someone with very different circumstances, the research team also wanted to understand the minimum combined change necessary to create a meaningful difference. They found that even small improvements to habits yielded better outcomes. Just five extra minutes of sleep per night, less than two additional minutes of moderate exercise daily, and a 5-point improvement in diet quality—roughly equivalent to adding half a serving of vegetables or 1.5 servings of whole grains per day—resulted in a year-longer lifespan.
For four additional disease-free years, participants could tack on an average 24 extra minutes of sleep per night, about four additional minutes of moderate exercise daily, and a more substantial 23-point diet quality improvement. While that shift in diet takes some discipline, for nearly a half-decade gain in healthy years, it’s practical.
So, while much previous research typically looked at sleep, exercise, and diet separately, this study shows that these behaviors compound each other. Put another way: you don’t have to become a triathlete or go vegan. If you nudge sleep, exercise, and diet little by little, all at the same time, that kind of lifestyle change really can result in a longer, healthier life.
For more wellness updates, subscribe to The Healthy newsletter and follow The Healthy on Facebook and Instagram. Keep reading:
- New Study: If You Still Have This, You’re More Likely To Turn 100
- Longevity Experts “Always” Eat These 4 Foods Daily—and Avoid 4 More
- Keeping This One Body Part Clean Can Cut Your Risk of Pancreatic Cancer, a New Study Says
- I Wore “Sleep Buds” in Pursuit of Better Rest—and I’ll Always Follow This One Rule from Now On
