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Everyone knows a bad night\u2019s sleep can ruin your day\u2014and that routinely struggling to fall and stay asleep can profoundly affect your quality of life. But poor sleep <\/a>doesn\u2019t just affect your day-to-day. It can have big consequences on your overall health, too.<\/p>\n A new study, published in PLOS Medicine<\/a>, adds to a growing body of research suggesting sleep\u2014particularly REM sleep<\/a> and deep sleep\u2014plays a pivotal role in disease prevention. Analyzing data collected from over 95,000 UK Biobank participants, the researchers found that getting more REM sleep was associated with a lower risk of developing a staggering number of diseases\u201483 of them, to be exact\u2014while more deep sleep was linked to a lower risk of developing seven.<\/p>\n Experts caution against over-interpreting this single study, which has its limitations. Still, it supports what scientists have long known about sleep\u2019s relationship with overall health.<\/p>\n \u201cSufficient, high-quality, regular sleep is of paramount importance for wellbeing, daytime performance and health,\u201d says Mathias Basner, M.D., Ph.D.<\/a>, director of the Unit for Experimental Psychiatry in the Division of Sleep and Chronobiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. \u201cThere are countless experimental and epidemiologic studies corroborating this, and [this] study adds another piece to the puzzle.\u201d<\/p>\n Ahead, sleep medicine scientists explain what this study did\u2014and didn\u2019t\u2014find, and how it fits into broader research about the role of sleep in disease progression.<\/p>\n Meet the Experts: Michael A. Grandner, Ph.D.<\/a>, director of the Sleep and Health Research Program and Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinical at the University of Arizona; Mathias Basner, M.D., Ph.D.<\/a>, director of the Unit for Experimental Psychiatry in the Division of Sleep and Chronobiology in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; James Rowley, M.D.<\/a>, program director of the Sleep Medicine Fellowship at Rush University Medical Center and president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM).<\/p>\n What did the study find?<\/p>\n The researchers analyzed data from UK Biobank participants, whose sleep patterns were tracked for seven days with wrist-worn accelerometers. The accelerometer data were collected between 2013 and 2015, and participants were then followed for about nine years.<\/p>\n After crunching the numbers, the researchers found that getting more REM sleep was associated with a lower risk of developing 83 diseases, from heart failure and atrial fibrillation<\/a> to multiple sclerosis and dementia. More deep sleep was associated with a lower risk of seven conditions, including type 2 diabetes, depression, osteoarthritis<\/a>, and Parkinson\u2019s. Additionally, greater total sleep duration was associated with a lower risk of 50 conditions, many of which were endocrine diseases, including type 2 diabetes.<\/p>\n However, the study has its limitations\u2014first and foremost of which is its reliance on wrist accelerometer data, which was fed to an algorithm to determine how much time each participant spent in various sleep stages.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is essentially a movement sensor. It does not measure brain waves, eye movements, or the other physiological signals used to determine sleep stages,\u201d says Michael A. Grandner, Ph.D.<\/a>, director of the Sleep and Health Research Program and Behavioral Sleep Medicine Clinical at the University of Arizona. \u201cIt may contain some information about what state someone is probably in, but there is so much uncertainty around the individual classifications that I would be very reluctant to interpret the resulting numbers as actual measurements of REM or deep sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n Add Prevention as a preferred source in your Google search results.<\/p>\n Use your Google account to add this to your settings.<\/p>\n Add to Google settings<\/p>\n Grandner also points out that the algorithm used was shown to group non-REM stages of sleep together, so he\u2019d be \u201cespecially cautious\u201d when interpreting the study\u2019s deep sleep data.<\/p>\n James Rowley, M.D.<\/a>, program director of the Sleep Medicine Fellowship at Rush University Medical Center and president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), notes that participants\u2019 sleep data was only collected during one seven-day period, although sleep patterns often change with age. \u201cWe do not know if changes in sleep patterns [and] stages would also contribute to health outcomes,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n What does sleep have to do with disease prevention?<\/p>\n While Grandner cautions that good sleep support is just one factor\u2014and not \u201ca medicine that prevents individual diseases\u201d\u2014he agrees it supports overall health. \u201cSleep and circadian rhythms interact with cardiovascular function, metabolism, immune function, hormonal regulation, brain function, and mental health,\u201d he says. \u201cChronically insufficient or disrupted sleep can place stress on many of these systems.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr. Rowley agrees. \u201cSleep directly supports the immune system to help fight disease, promote tissue repair, lower inflammation<\/a>, and helps the mind and body feel restored,\u201d he says, pointing to a 2025 statement<\/a> from AASM, which stresses that sleepiness \u201cis associated with an increased risk for adverse health effects and diminished quality of life.\u201d<\/p>\n Why might REM and deep sleep be particularly important?<\/p>\n REM tends to occur later in the night, and is thought to be important for supporting \u201caspects of learning, memory<\/a>, and emotional processing,\u201d Grandner says. Deep sleep occurs earlier, and has been linked to \u201cprocesses involving memory and learning as well as cardiovascular, metabolic, and other aspects of physiological regulation,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n Still, it\u2019s probably best not to stress too much about individual stages\u2014and not only because the estimates made by consumer wearables are often inaccurate. \u201cI would resist the popular tendency to think that one is the \u2018good\u2019 or \u2018restorative\u2019 stage,\u201d Grandner adds. \u201cHealthy sleep involves cycling through all of these states. They are different parts of a coordinated biological process.\u201d<\/p>\n What can individuals do to get better sleep?<\/p>\n Rather than focusing on boosting one particular stage or another, aim for solid sleep overall. Experts suggest the following strategies to support sleep hygiene:<\/p>\n![\"Google\"](\"https:\/\/www.prevention.com\/_assets\/design-tokens\/fre\/static\/icons\/social\/google.1467f37.svg\")
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