Several studies suggest that messing with your natural circadian sleep rhythm can have adverse affects on your health. A 2015 study, however, suggests that greatly altering your sleeping schedule on the weekend can have a similar effect.
Photo by Ryan Dickey.
The study, led by Patricia M. Wong at the University of Pittsburgh, and published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, observed nearly 450 men and women for an entire week. Nearly 85 per cent of the participants slept in later on the weekend. For those participants, researchers found that the larger the gap in sleep timing between weekdays and weekend days, the higher the risk they had for having lower HDL (the good type of cholesterol), higher triglycerides, higher insulin resistance, and a higher body mass index. Wong explains that it’s still unclear how this may effect you in the long term, but it might be worth trying to wake up closer to your normal weekday time this Saturday (assuming you’re able to get enough sleep, of course). You can learn more about the study at the link below.
Social Jetlag, Chronotype, and Cardiometabolic Risk [The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism via The New York Times]
Comments
4 responses to “Sleeping In Too Much On The Weekend May Be Bad For Your Health”
Along with sugar, fat, polluted air, eating breakfast, not eating breakfast, smarthphones, sitting, too much running, weight lifting before running, not enough sleep, alcohol, homework, divorce, daylight saving and reading articles that tell you something is bad for you…
I could go on… google suggests there’s about another 442,000 reasons…
Correct, bonehead. I have had enough of seeing never-ending articles relating to what COULD affect human bodies, so take note that 99.999% of them are conjecture (an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information.)
On a general basis the articles, and newspaper articles also contain ‘opt-out’ words, could, maybe, possibly, guess, speculate, surmise, infer, fancy, imagine, believe, think, suspect, presume, assume, etc; because the facts are unknown.