Cut Your Risk of a Heart Attack With an Hour’s Lie-in on Monday Mornings

A new finding suggests that an hour's lie-in on Monday mornings can effectively cut your risk of heart attacks.

According to boffins, Mondays are a peak time for heart attacks due to the stress of the morning commute, the first workday of the week and fatigue from the weekend.

Heart Attack - Overview
Heart attack is the death of the heart muscle due to loss of blood supply. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Other names for heart attack include acute myocardial infarction, coronary thrombosis, and coronary occlusion.

To reach the conclusion, the research team examined the number of heart attacks suffered in the week after the Spring and Autumn clock changes, compared to the same days of the week at other times.

After analyzing, the research team found that the number of heart attacks increased in the days after the clocks went back in the Spring and decreased slightly on the Monday following the Autumn change when the clocks go forward by an hour.

The suggestion is that sleep deprivation may have an effect on heart health and increase the likelihood of having a heart attack. So the extra hour's sleep after the Autumn clock change could be why there is a reduction in heart attacks after the switch.

Chest pain – Causes – Risk Factors – Symptoms – Diagnosis – Treatment
Ask any one who has experienced intense chest pain and they will vouch for the fact that it was the most frightening experience of their life!

"We can hypothesize that it is only Monday where the extra hour of sleep does matter. Sleep diary studies suggest later bedtimes and wake up times on weekend days, thus earlier wake up at the first working day causes minor sleep deprivation in certain individuals and Monday is the day where most of us will use this extra hour,” the Telegraph quoted study author Imre Janszky, of the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, as saying.

The findings, which were only seen in people aged under 65, suggest that they were of working age, and not in older people, who were likely to have been retired.

Animation of heart attack symptoms
Heart attack can cause symptoms such as Chest pain or discomfort, Shortness of breath and pain in neck, back, arm, or shoulder and is due to blockage of blood supply to the heart muscles

Source-ANI
TAN/M

Angioplasty
Arteries supplying the heart is sometimes blocked by plaque leading to heart attack.Angioplasty is a method by which a part of the blocked artery is expanded to place a stent.Once this is done normal blood flow resumes and the heart regains its normal function.