The Great News about Sleep Quality Research
Nice to see media finally catching on to the distinctions between sleep quality and sleep quantity. Reporting on a just published study in the journal SLEEP, Professor Neal Walsh and colleagues looked at “natural” sleep restriction among military recruits undergoing new training and found sleep quality trumps sleep quantity.
Among recruits who initially reported poor sleep quality, the naturally occurring sleep restriction from the training program led to greater susceptibility to upper respiratory tract infections (URIs); whereas, military recruits with good sleep quality beforehand and undergoing the same sleep restriction from the same training showed no increases in URIs.
Bottom line is many sleep quality problems are related to sleep breathing conditions (often unbeknownst to the individual), which directly cause friction inside the human airway. The changes in the tissues inside the airway then lead to greater infectivity. Got it? Sleep breathing problems not only cause bad sleep, they also set you up for chronic or more frequent respiratory infections.
Regrettably, the researchers only raised the potential for improving sleep quality with behavioral interventions instead of focusing on the resolution of the physiological disruption caused by sleep breathing disorders.
As discussed in prior posts, an individual can start treatment of a sleep breathing condition immediately by using nasal strips, nasal dilators or working to eliminate nasal congestion.