Sleep Regularity and Other Sleep Habits in Adolescence Predict Young Adult Heart Health

Stony Brook-led study of hundreds nationwide reveals that earlier, efficient, and regular sleep patterns in adolescence better predict future heart health

STONY BROOK, NY, October 29, 2025 - A study of 307 youth from a diverse population across the United States whose health data were documented from birth into adulthood revealed that earlier sleep timing, more efficient sleep, and less variable sleep patterns during adolescence predicted better young adult cardiovascular health (CVH). Led by researchers in Stony Brook University's Program in Public Health, the study findings are published in JACC: Advances.

Public health and sleep researchers have identified the importance of sleep to overall health in adults. The American Heart Association (AHA) has included age-appropriate sleep duration as important for CVH. Most studies related to sleep patterns and CVH are centered on middle-age to older adults. This study, however, includes a cohort of youth tracked from birth. The research team collected objective data on sleep at age 15 years and several detailed biomarkers of young adult CVH at age 22 years, used to create a composite CVH score.

"Our study strengthens the evidence that healthy sleep patterns during adolescence have lasting physical health benefits," says Senior Author Lauren Hale, PhD, Core Faculty member in the Program in Public Health, and Professor in the Department of Family, Population and Preventive Medicine in the Renaissance School of Medicine (RSOM) at Stony Brook University. "Healthy teen sleep can be supported through a mix of individual behaviors such as consistent bedtimes and removing screens from the bedroom, and broader structural changes like a later high school start time as one example."

Data were collected and analyzed from several sub-studies of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study. For each youth, a composite CVH score was calculated based on criteria from the AHA incorporating diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, body mass index, blood lipids, blood glucose, and blood pressure. Researchers adjusted the findings based on lifestyle factors, sociodemographic characteristics, and confounders related to CVH during adolescence.

Sleep measures among adolescents were collected with a wrist-worn accelerometer using actigraphy, which is a non-invasive, objective way of measuring body movements related to sleep and wake.

"We were surprised that adolescent sleep duration did not predict young adult cardiovascular health in the current study. Instead, other dimensions of sleep health did," says Lead Author Gina Marie Mathew, PhD, Senior Post-Doctoral Associate in the Program in Public Health. "Discovering these associations earlier in life means early intervention to improve sleep in adolescents could be protective of future cardiovascular health," she emphasizes.

More specifically, actigraphic sleep measurements indicated that earlier sleep timing (time of day of falling asleep and waking up), higher sleep maintenance efficiency (indicative of better sleep quality), and lower sleep variability (i.e., more regularity) at age 15 predicted a higher and therefore better cardiovascular health score at age 22.

The authors write that the "study is among the first to examine whether several dimensions of actigraphic sleep health in adolescence predict young adult CVH." They add that "future research should examine whether moving sleep timing earlier and reducing sleep variability among adolescents predict better CVH in later life."

The research for this study was supported, in part, by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).