Lack of sleep linked to colds

A study has shown getting less than seven hours of sleep a night increases your chances of catching a cold.

Experts found those people who get less than seven hours of sleep appear to be about three times more likely to develop respiratory illness following exposure to a cold virus as those who sleep eight hours or more.

Appearing in the Archives of Internal Medicine, today’s report looked at 154 men and women between 2000 and 2004.

Participants were interviewed daily over a two-week period, reporting how many hours they slept, what percentage of their time in bed was spent asleep and whether they felt rested.

The research found the less an individual slept, the more likely they were to develop a cold.

Lower sleep efficiency was also associated with becoming ill – participants who spent less than 92 per cent of their time in bed asleep were five and a half times more likely to become ill than those whose efficiency was 98 per cent or higher.

“What mechanisms might link sleep to cold susceptibility? When the components of clinical illness (infection and signs or symptoms) were examined separately, sleep efficiency but not sleep duration was associated with signs and symptoms of illness,” the authors write.