Short sleepers are four times more likely to catch a cold

This is the first study to use sleep measures to connect people's natural sleep habits and their risk of getting sick. Scientists found that people who sleep six hours a night or less are four times more likely to catch a cold when exposed to the virus, compared to those who sleep more than seven hours a night. Sleep is important for our health, with poor sleep linked to chronic illnesses, disease susceptibility and even premature death. Short sleep was more important than any other factor in predicting subjects likelihood of catching cold, it didn't matter how old people were, their stress levels, their race. It didn't matter if they were a smoker. With all those things taken into account, statistically sleep still carried the day.

Ref: Aric A. Prather, 2015, SLEEP.

DOI: 10.5665/sleep.4968

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