As 2023 peers around the corner, people will no doubt begin thinking through their lists of New Year's resolutions. While healthy eating, exercise, budgeting and others are important, cardiology and sleep medicine experts at Northwestern Medicine are encouraging one goal to be on everyone's lists: getting better sleep.
"Sleep is closely tied to weight, blood pressure, blood sugar and even what we choose to eat," said Dr. Donald Lloyd-Jones, chair of the department of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, a Northwestern Medicine cardiologist and former president of the American Heart Association (AHA).
In June of this year, the AHA added sleep to its list of health behaviors people can improve to achieve optimal cardiovascular health.
"There's also newer research that shows when we take the previous seven cardiovascular health metrics and add sleep, we can predict cardiovascular disease and stroke risk even better," Lloyd Jones said. "And we have good strategies for helping people improve their sleep duration and quality."
