Information overload and screen time degrade sleep and cause irreversible heart damage over time, North Estonia Medical Center cardiologist Margus Viigimaa warned.
Sleep deprivation is one of the main triggers of high blood pressure and cardiac arrhythmias, Viigimaa added.
Quality sleep is the foundation of heart health. “One thing is the duration of sleep, but another is that sleep needs to be continuous,” he explained. In addition, sleep must include REM phases, characterized by rapid eye movements. During these phases, the nervous system recovers from daytime strain and recharges with new energy.
However, if a person wakes up and lies awake for hours at night, this cannot be considered quality rest. This is a biological alarm bell, because physiology does not forgive shortened sleep. “If sleep duration is under six hours, the risk of cardiovascular complications increases by about one third,” Viigimaa noted. This is also directly linked to the development of hypertension, or high blood pressure.
At night, the heart and blood vessels should power down
The heart needs a nighttime break, because this is the only time when the body’s engine can slow down. “Blood pressure drops quite significantly during sleep — by about 10 to 20 percent,” he said. Heart rate also slows markedly during sleep, sometimes falling as low as 40 to 50 beats per minute. If this relaxation of the blood vessels and heart does not occur over a long period, health can take a serious hit.
According to Viigimaa, a draining chain reaction is triggered in the body. Inflammation markers in the blood remain elevated, stress tolerance decreases, and the end result may be chest pain and chronically elevated blood pressure. A growing menace is sleep apnea, or nighttime breathing pauses. “Some of these pauses can be very long, so that’s a topic in itself,” he noted. Breathing interruptions are a very strong risk factor for both blood pressure and the cardiovascular system as a whole.
At the same time, lying in bed for half the day to calm down does not help. According to statistics, sleeping more than nine hours is also not good for the heart. “These are usually underlying health disorders that cause such long sleep, and there may be other contributing factors,” Viigimaa explained. Normal sleep is considered to be seven to eight hours. Older adults often manage with five to six hours, but they may compensate for shorter night sleep with daytime naps.
Nonstop flow of data exhausts the nervous system
One of the main culprits behind today’s sleep crisis is massive information overload. According to data from the National Institute for Health Development, levels of anxiety, stress, and depression have risen significantly since 2018.
The pandemic, economic hardships, and wars have taken their toll. In addition, the nonstop flow of data exhausts the nervous system. “AI and all these insane opportunities to acquire information — the brain eventually stretches like rubber, getting so full of worries and information that sleep just won’t come,” he described.
The human body needs balance in order to shut down. A physically exhausted person usually falls asleep easily, but someone who is mentally overworked and overwhelmed by information has difficulty drifting off.
You can’t repay sleep debt by sleeping in on weekends
In the end, stress and sleeplessness overwhelm the body. Short daytime naps can help trick the system. “Many people say that even 15 to 20 minutes or half an hour is enough — their work capacity is immediately restored,” Viigimaa said. In southern countries, this is common practice.
What cannot be done, however, is repaying sleep debt. Sleeping in for a long time on weekends does not solve the problem, because in the long run, sleep quality requires strict regularity. Viigimaa emphasized the importance of an evening routine. Smart devices and blue screens interfere with falling asleep and should be avoided before bedtime. Although exercise is beneficial, it should be done no later than between 6 and 8 p.m., so the body has time to calm down again before going to bed.
“In the bed where we sleep, we shouldn’t stay awake for long — when you go to bed, you should fall asleep,” Viigimaa emphasized. There is no point in tossing and turning under the sheets in a mentally overstimulated state; sleep will remain poor.
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