Getting enough sleep each night could add years to your life

Most people treat sleep like spare time – easy to borrow from, easy to cut when life gets crowded. A full night’s rest often feels optional, not essential, and the health consequences rarely feel immediate.

But new research from Oregon Health and Science University flips that assumption on its head. Instead of sitting on the sidelines of wellness, sleep appears to play a central role in how long you live.

Drawing on millions of survey responses from across the United States, the researchers uncovered a striking pattern.

The number of hours you sleep each night consistently tracks with life expectancy at the county level. Longer sleep aligned with longer life, while short sleep aligned with shorter life.

The scale of the dataset made the trend impossible to ignore. Sleep isn’t just downtime. It’s an active force shaping long-term health – and the new evidence makes the stakes unmistakably clear.

More sleep, longer life

Researchers compared county life expectancy with CDC survey data from 2019 to 2025 and found a striking pattern: more sleep consistently linked to longer life.

Despite the strength of that trend, they emphasize that the goal remains seven to nine hours of sleep each night.

The study ranked sleep beside other common lifestyle factors. Sleep surpassed diet. It surpassed exercise. It even surpassed loneliness.

Only smoking showed a stronger link with shorter life. The strength of the pattern caught the research team by surprise.

“It’s intuitive and makes a lot of sense, but it was still striking to see it materialize so strongly in all of these models,” said senior author Dr. Andrew McHill. His reaction came from working with sleep science for years, yet still seeing numbers that felt sharper than expected.

Life patterns in sleep

Earlier work connected poor sleep with higher mortality. This new study showed something more specific. Each state displayed yearly correlations between sleep duration and life expectancy.

The CDC defined sufficient sleep as at least seven hours a night, a standard used by major sleep science groups. State maps shifted with small yearly differences, but the link stayed steady.

This level of detail helped the researchers see sleep not as a vague influence, but as a measurable factor that follows clear trends.

Big stakes for health

The analysis did not explain the exact biological reasons behind the pattern. Still, medical science offers clues. Sleep supports heart function. It strengthens immune responses.

It protects memory and attention. Short sleep can strain these systems, and repeated strain can shape long-term health.

“This research shows that we need to prioritize sleep at least as much as we do to what we eat or how we exercise,” McHill said. He added a simple reminder many people ignore: “Getting a good night’s sleep will improve how you feel but also how long you live.”

Simple ways to improve sleep

Better sleep does not call for big plans or costly tools. It mainly needs steady time, a calm space, and a bit of care from you. The study encourages people to stop treating sleep as something left for the end of the day.

Instead, it suggests treating sleep like food or movement, something your body depends on every single day. When you protect your sleep, your body notices. Your mind stays clearer, your mood steadier, and your energy rises more easily.

Small steps can help. A set bedtime, fewer late-night distractions, and enough hours in bed can reshape how you feel each morning.

These choices may seem minor, yet they add up. A simple change in your nightly routine may become one of the strongest health decisions you make.

The study is published in the journal SLEEP Advances.

—–

Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates. 

Check us out on EarthSnap, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls and Earth.com.

—–