Hearing Relaxing Words While Asleep Is Good for the Heart…

Affirmations when you sleep! Who, knew?

Relaxing sleep affirmations can have a calming effect on the heart, a new study published in the Journal of Sleep Research has revealed.

Researchers at the University of Liége in Belgium and the University of Fribourg in Switzerland analyzed electrical activity in the heart to understand how bodies react to external stimuli when asleep.

They found that people’s heartbeats change in response to hearing different types of words even while sleeping. Results showed that relaxing messages played during sleep helped slow people’s heart rates while hearing neutral words had no effect.

Previous research by the Belgian-Swiss team has shown that relaxing words enhance deep sleep duration and sleep quality, while the latest study adds support to their hypothesis by incorporating cardiac and brain activity into the findings.

Around the country, 70% of adults report having insufficient sleep at least one night a month, while 11% of US adults claim they can never achieve a good night’s sleep, according to the American Sleep Apnea Association.

A lack of deep sleep can have detrimental effects on your physical and mental health by contributing to an increased risk of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, depression, heart attack and stroke.