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Is your sleep health affecting your stroke risk?

An older couple asleep in bed.

May 7, 2026—Getting a healthy amount of high-quality sleep is vital to your well-being. What's more, it might even help reduce your risk of stroke.

A variety of sleep-related issues and conditions have been linked to an increased risk of stroke. A stroke occurs when something—usually a clot lodged in a blood vessel—interrupts the brain's blood supply.

These stroke-linked sleep issues include:

Untreated sleep apnea. With this condition, a person's upper airway relaxes too much during sleep, preventing normal breathing. As a result, breathing stops and restarts many times a night. These frequent breathing interruptions lower oxygen levels in the brain and increase blood pressure—both of which can raise the risk of stroke, according to the American Stroke Association.

So, don't ignore sleep apnea warning signs in yourself or a sleep partner. They include:

  • Loud snoring.
  • Excessive daytime tiredness.
  • Morning headaches.
  • Problems with memory and concentration.
  • Waking up gasping for air.

If those sound familiar, let your doctor know. A sleep study can help you get the diagnosis—and treatment—you need.

It's worth noting that the link between stroke and sleep apnea runs in both directions. Sleep apnea may be more likely to develop after a stroke, the American Sleep Apnea Association reports.

Getting too much or too little sleep. Experts recommend that adults sleep between seven and nine hours per night. But an international study of 4,496 people found that those who exceeded or fell short of these average sleep needs had a higher stroke risk, reports the American Academy of Neurology.

Specifically:

  • Study participants who got more than nine hours of sleep a night were more than twice as likely to have a stroke as those who slept for seven hours.
  • Those who slept less than five hours were three times more likely to have a stroke than those who slept seven hours per night on average.

As to why oversleeping or skimping on sleep might affect your stroke chances, experts still don't know for sure. But these sleep habits are linked to other serious health problems that might lead to stroke, such as sleep apnea, obesity and high blood pressure.

Light pollution. Even the amount of light you're exposed to while you sleep might affect your stroke risk. That's the suggestion from a study of people in one of China's large cities, reports the American Heart Association. When they compared people with the most and least artificial light exposure, researchers found that those exposed to the most light had a 43% increased risk of stroke or other conditions affecting blood flow to the brain.

Why? Bright lights might lower the body's production of melatonin, a sleep hormone. That might, in turn, prevent people from getting the sleep they need to help maintain their vascular health. More studies are needed to confirm the findings.

Get a good night's rest

Nearly every aspect of your health depends on good sleep. So if you're having sleep problems or you're often tired even after you sleep enough hours, tell your doctor. To start the conversation, share the results of this quick sleep assessment.

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