Study reveals five things that can help improve your sleep, and increase your lifespan

How important is sleep for good health? As it turns out, a lot. A new study found that people with a good sleep schedule tend to enjoy longer lives. If you're a man, a good night's sleep will add five years to your life expectancy, while for women that number stands lower at two and a half years. If you want to reap this study's benefits, you must follow a particular sleep schedule. The study recommends five factors that may make your next round of zzzs, a quality sleep. Intrigued? Read on to know what you need to change about your sleep schedule, and what qualifies as a night of quality sleep.

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Step 1. Make sure you're getting at least seven to eight hours of sleep.

Step 2. This one might not be in your control, but you can't be having difficulty falling asleep more than twice a week.

Step 3. Similarly, you can't have interrupted sleep for more than two days a week.

Step 4. Your sleep should not depend on sleep medication. It has to be natural.

Step 5. It's not quality sleep if you're not feeling rested even after sleeping an appropriate number of hours at least five days a week.

These factors are not just a shot in the dark. Researchers spent more than four years analysing the data of over 172,000 people who answered sleep questionnaires. The study was conducted as part of the National Health Interview Survey, an annual survey done by the CDC and the National Center for Health Statistics.

"If people have all these ideal sleep behaviours, they are more likely to live longer," says Dr Frank Qian, a clinical fellow in medicine at Harvard Medical School, and co-author of the study.

"So if we can improve sleep overall, and identifying sleep disorders is especially important, we may be able to prevent some of this premature mortality," he added. As per Qian, there needs to be additional research done on why quality sleep correlates to a higher life expectancy in men.

(With inputs from agencies)

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