Most of us would love an easy longevity hack. Fewer salads. Less treadmill. Something that doesn’t require buying a $400 wellness gadget or pretending we love cold plunges. Well, a new study just handed us one, and it’s the least glamorous habit imaginable. Sleep. The thing we keep sacrificing for one more episode, one more email, one more scroll in the void.
Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University reviewed US survey data from 2019 through 2025 and found that getting less than seven hours of sleep per night had a stronger link to lower life expectancy than diet or exercise. Only smoking ranked higher.
As sleep physiologist Andrew McHill said in a statement, “I didn’t expect [insufficient sleep] to be so strongly correlated to life expectancy. People really should strive to get seven to nine hours of sleep if at all possible.”
The study, published in Sleep Advances, controlled for other factors that shape longevity, including physical inactivity, employment status, and educational level. The link between short sleep and shorter life held steady. It’s observational research, so it can’t prove causation, but the association stood out enough that even the scientists seemed startled.
The body shows signs that people often ignore or mistake for something less important. Losing just one night of good sleep can harm the immune system and disrupt brain function. Over time, McHill’s research linked bad sleep habits to serious problems like diabetes and obesity, which can damage overall health.
While this isn’t surprising, learning that sleep can predict health outcomes better than diet or exercise feels eye-opening. It reframes the nightly decision to stay up as something more consequential than an indulgence.
There’s some good news. Sleep habits are at least partly changeable, even if our lives don’t always cooperate. Both the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society recommend seven hours per night. The study also noted emerging evidence that people might actually recover some benefit on weekends, which is comforting for anyone who feels like modern life keeps stealing their evenings.
McHill put it plainly. “Getting a good night’s sleep will improve how you feel but also how long you live.” It’s intuitive, but still jarring to see it materialize so clearly in the data. Diet and exercise are still very important, but the hours you surrender to your pillow might matter more.
So if you needed permission to close your laptop, skip the doomscroll, and put your phone across the room, consider this your cue. Night, night.
The post Forget Diet and Exercise. People Who Live Longest Do This. appeared first on VICE.
