Striving4Zen

"sleep...don't weep", originally uploaded by woolloomooloo.

If you have ever suffered from lack of sleep, you know how vital getting your Zs can be. It can even affect your ability to lose weight. We know that the quality of your sleep is important to your health, but it looks like more than just having a bad mattress can put your health at risk during slumber.

Ambient light during nighttime sleeping could raise your risk for breast cancer. A new study supports the theory that too much light at night interferes with the production of melatonin and increases the risk of breast cancer. Melatonin is a hormone that helps to control the sleep wake cycle and the exact reason dips in this hormone affect cancer rates is still to be determined. Researchers said that nighttime light is not by any means the sole factor in developing breast cancers, but the breast cancer rate in areas with average night lighting was found to be 37 percent higher than in areas with the lowest amount of light.

It is not just high levels of light during sleep that can have a negative impact on your health, but noise as well. Noises, from airplanes to motorcycles to snoring, can create "patchy" sleep. While you might stay asleep during these and other noises, your body still experiences the sounds and your blood pressure rises in response. The louder the noise is the higher the rise in blood pressure, too. The researchers shared that it is not that the noise is annoying you to raise your blood pressure, but that your body registers the noise as some form of stress.

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