Sleep restriction and its influence on blood pressure

Sleep is a major modulator of cardiovascular function. Since it's more difficult to maintain adequate sleep duration among night watchmen during their working schedule, so in this study, we hypothesized that, the short sleep duration (<3 h) for 7 days in their night shift schedule, may possibly influence BMI, blood pressure and pulse wave analysis (PWA). In order to test this, we measured, anthropometric variable, heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), pulse pressure (PP) and mean arterial pressure (MAP), along with measurement from pulse wave analysis (PWA) such as augmentation pressure (AP), augmentation index (AIx), AIx normalized to a heart rate of 75 beats per minute (Alx@75%) and subendocardial viability ratio (SEVR) in nigh watchmen at 1st day, 4th day and 7th day of restricted sleep periods. We observed, among restricted sleep individuals, sleepiness was significant increase at 4th and 7th day when compare to normal sleep individuals, and apart from DBP, there was significant increase in, HR, SBP, PP and MAP, only at 7th day of restricted sleep period. However, the entire anthropometric variable and PWA analysis such as AP, Alx, Alx@75% and SEVR in sleep restricted individuals was comparable to normal sleep individuals in all restricted sleep periods. In summary, sleep restriction could play a role in the etiology of increased blood pressure and may have an impact to increase cardiovascular risk. This knowledge will be useful, to enabling risk factors and to improve health outcomes among night watchmen with early accomplishment.