A groundbreaking new study has suggested that making one change to the way we live could increase our chances of having a heart attack.

While there has been a common held belief among experts for some time that our sleeping habits can have an impact on our health, a new study lead by a group of Canadian researchers at the University of Ottawa has found that changing the time we go to bed and wake up can increase the chances of a heart attack.

Taking data from a group of over 70,000 people aged between 40 and 79, the experts were able to find that people who regularly changed their hours of sleep were 26 per cent more likely to have a major cardiovascular issue such as a heart attack or stroke.

The study closely analysed key areas of the participants' sleeping routines, including their bedtime, when they woke up, how long they slept for and whether they woke up during the night.

After taking into consideration a number of factors that could also impact someone’s chances of suffering a serious cardiovascular event, such as the amount of exercise someone undertakes, coffee consumption and the hours they spent in work, the study discovered that those with inconsistent sleep patterns were 26 per cent more likely to suffer from one of the conditions.

The experts mused that the potential reason for irregular sleeping patterns having such an impact on heart health could be down to 'circadian misalignment', which is defined as something that 'occurs when your body's internal timings are out of sync with the actual time of day.'

Speaking about the study, the lead author, Jean-Philippe Chaput, from the University of Ottawa said: “We should aim to wake up and go to sleep within 30 minutes of the same time each night and each morning, including weekends. Within an hour of the same time is good but less good than 30 minutes, and even better is to have zero variation.

“Beyond an hour’s difference each night and each morning means irregular sleep. That can have negative health impacts. The closer you are to zero variation the better."