Mar 9, 2019
Vidcast: https://youtu.be/PTaQhgCWsPw
If you burn your candle at both ends during the week and think that you can catch up on sleep over the weekend, think again! A study from the University of Colorado shows that you won’t catch up on sleep and that your irregular sleep pattern will torpedo your glucose metabolism and internal time clock.
The study assigned health young adults to one of three groups: a group with only 5 hours of sleep at night with no weekend catch-up; a group with only 5 hours of sleep for 5 nights followed by the chance to snooze forever on the weekend; and a control group who slept 9 hours each night. The researchers studied the subjects’ sleep patterns via sleep studies, their weight gain, insulin sensitivity, and body circadian rhythms.
The results revealed that the sleep-deprived group only recaptured a little more than one hour of the more than 12 hours of lost sleep when they were able to sleep in over the weekend. Of even more importance, they could never recapture all the lost critical deep or slow wave sleep. They gained more weight than the well-rested group and suffered reduced insulin sensitivity, a risk factor for diabetes.
So..... to avoid flogging your body, try to get 8 or 9 hours of sleep a day on a regular basis. Those weekend hours on the couch won’t repay your sleep debt, and they rob your loved ones of your sterling presence.
#sleepdeprivation #weekendsleep #insulinsensitivity #deepsleep #healthnews
Christopher M. Depner, Edward L. Melanson, Robert H. Eckel, Janet K. Snell-Bergeon, Leigh Perreault, Bryan C. Bergman, Janine A. Higgins, Molly K. Guerin, Ellen R. Stothard, Sarah J. Morton, Kenneth P. Wright. Ad libitum Weekend Recovery Sleep Fails to Prevent Metabolic Dysregulation during a Repeating Pattern of Insufficient Sleep and Weekend Recovery Sleep. Current Biology, 2019; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.01.069