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Insomnia or other shorter sleep duration in kids can be due to the heart rate variability during sleep.
Heart rate variability is the beat-to-beat variations of heart rate. The heart beat intervals in a healthy person will change slightly, with response to the automatic functions like breathing.
But the hearts of the kids who have insomnia will beat too fast, which is not good. There can be an impairment of cardiovascular autonomic regulation. This can happen long before they reach the high-risk period for a cardiovascular disease.
The kids who sleep a longer duration have a healthier heart regulation profile compared to kids who sleep shorter durations.
The epidemiology professors for Penn State University College of Medicine in Hershey had conducted this study.