Sleep your way to a cold-free winter

Feel a cold coming on? Get some sleep. That extra hour could make all the difference.

People who get less than 7 hours sleep a night have three times the chance of catching a cold as someone who sleeps for more than eight hours according to new research from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA.

Sleep repairs the body's immune system. A decent night's kip gives it longer to do this imporving your chances of fighting off colds and flu.

Previous research has suggested that people who sleep longer at night night also have the lowest rates of heart disease.

The researchers studied 153 healthy men and women - average age, 37. They were interviewed about their sleeping patterns and then given nose drops containing the rhinovirus which causes the common cold. They were tracked and blood samples taken to see how well their bodies were battling the infection.

Result: the less an individual slept, the more likely they were to develop a cold.

But tossing and turning doesn't help

In the study, published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine, the quality of sleep also appeared to be important. Sleep for less that 92% of the time you're under the covers and your risk of a cold appears to be five-and-a-half times higher than if you sleep for at least 98% of your time in bed.

The researchers believe that lack of good quality sleep disturbs regulation of key chemicals produced by the immune system to fight infection.

Commenting on the study, Britain's cold expert Professor Ron Eccles of the Common Cold Centre at the University of Cardiff, told the BBC: 'The immune system may control the sleep-wake pattern and lack of sleep or sleep disturbance may depress the immune response to infection.

'I do believe there is enough information on this to indicate that lack of sleep or sleep disturbance will reduce our resistance to infections such as colds and flu.'

• Interview with Ron Eccles and more on avoiding the common cold.