Get More Sleep, Maybe Avoid a Cold

Although being tired and run down doesn’t cause colds, research has backed up the long-time belief that being tired can help reduce your defenses, increasing your risk of developing a cold if exposed to a virus.

This belief is that sleep is supposed to be restorative. It gives your body a chance to settle down, lower its blood pressure and replenish – so to speak – its reserves for another day of living. If you don’t sleep, you can be vulnerable to many illnesses.

Researchers in the United States studied a group of 153 healthy men and women who had no signs or symptoms of a cold. The participants kept track of how long and well they slept over a two-week period. After the two weeks, the group was quarantined and exposed to a cold virus through a nasal spray.

The findings, which were published recently in the Archives of Internal Medicine, showed that the subjects who slept an average of fewer than seven hours a night were more likely to catch the cold than those who slept an average of eight hours per night. In fact, those who slept less had a three times higher risk of getting sick.

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