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Days of too-little sleep add up, and the effects don't go away after one good night's sleep.
RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Ready for the weekend? If your plans usually include lingering in bed long past your weekday wake-up time, you may want to seize the day instead of sleeping in. Lack of sleep has an effect that lasts longer than a single day, and people who rack up a sleep deficit during the week then think they can catch up by sleeping extra hours on the weekend are setting themselves up for trouble, according to sleep researchers. Sleep studies also suggest that if you're short on sleep for multiple days, the lost shut-eye has a cumulative effect as your sleep deficit grows.
THE DETAILS: In a study released in 2010, a team of U.S. and British researchers examined the long-term effects of lack of sleep in nine healthy volunteers, putting them on a cycle of 33 hours awake followed by 10 hours of sleep—essentially, making them stay up too long and then get extra hours of sleep time. The volunteers stayed on that schedule for 21 days, during which they were given repeated tests of their attention and reaction time. While their performance on the tests was normal in the hours immediately after waking, the group's scores decayed as each 30-plus-hour "day" wore on, despite the extra sleeping time. And the deficits in attention and reaction time worsened over the course of the study. Also, even though they were staying indoors under artificial light timed to their sleep/wake cycle, their performance tended to get worse when it was actually nighttime.
WHAT IT MEANS: The study underscores the detrimental effects of chronic lack of sleep. Previous research suggests that staying up for 19 hours has an impact on your ability to perform tasks that is similar to a blood alcohol level of 0.05 percent. This research shows that multiple nights of insufficient sleep add up to slow you down even more. "Getting two to three weeks of less than six hours per night causes performance to deteriorate faster for each hour spent awake," says study author Daniel A. Cohen, MD, from the division of sleep medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. For example, a few weeks of sleeping only six hours of night can leave you as impaired as if you'd stayed awake for 24 hours straight. And if you're awake during the night, sleep deprivation can have an even greater effect, he says. "Someone who's jet-lagged or working irregular shifts and therefore awake during the biological night could reach this same level of impairment after only being awake 10 hours."
Read on for advice on getting better sleep.
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The study didn't address that at all. Also, I'm a night person. There's no doubt. I know people that are morning people. They would wake up early no matter what time they went to bed and will wind down in the night hours.
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Sleep is very important for all of us
Sleep is very important for all of us and I think that this article emphasizes it well. For myself, I try to sleep for at least nine hours a day all the time. I think there are some who sleep less during the weekdays and try to get more sleep on weekends. I think it is best to sleep for regular hours everyday. I believe that good sleep can benefit us much. CPAP supplies can also help those who need sleep.
Jenny - http://www.cpap.com
Another flawed Rodale article...
"And when you need to pull an all-nighter to make a deadline or finish a project, follow it with a few nights of longer sleep to fully recover."
Seems to me, a weekend is pretty close to a few days. Sleeping in Saturday & Sunday followed by getting a bit extra by going to bed early Sunday night would do the trick according to him.
Author must not have children
My husband and I work full-time (long commutes) and have two children under the age of 4 - one child has autism and the other has acid reflux, asthma and allergies. I agree that lack of sleep feels like you are intoxicated and going for a long time has significant effects on personal performance. Unfortunately, going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time does nothing when your children either won't go to sleep (children with Autism tend to have sleeping problems) or if they are sick, they wake up multiple times during the night. This happens regardless of weekday or weekend. (Catch-up sleep - I wish!) Sleep deprivation is a way of life until our children get bigger. Can you please publish an article of how we can be successful and improve our personal performance even if we were not able to get the sleep we need? We need to learn how to work through these tough times and be successful.
Sleep Study
I too would like to say that this study was poor, at best, at reflecting what a typical sleep deprived profile would look like. The study is flawed in that 33 hours awake plus 10 hours of sleep makes a 43 hour 'Day'. And 4 of those days is approximately as long as a week, 172 hours vs a real week at 168 hours. Since the recommended 8 hours of sleep a night would give 56 hours of sleep in a week, the study only has volunteers sleeping 40 hours over that time frame. Where's the 'Make Up' sleep? There is none, even though they are sleeping 10 hours at a time. They are 16 hours short or sleep (40 hours vs a recommended 56) at the end of a 4 'Day' cycle which took a week to do. That is two full nights of missing sleep! If the study was more reflective of a typical sleep deprived person living a 24 hour day but getting 6 or less hours of sleep, I think the findings would have much more creedence. Quite a poor job on this study and article. I'll have to give you a 'D'.
sleep article comments
I wish some comments would have addressed lack of sleep with children. Too often I am out at 10:00p.m. on a weeknight doing a quick late shopping trip to the grocery & see young school aged kids out & wired. I do not know how they will ever awake in the morning for school. Often I find parents do not realize the number of hours kids need to sleep at a young age...9 & sometimes 10 hours a night since they are growing & active (not sitting at a computer job all day, for example). Our grown-up patterns of sleep can not be mirrored by our children without dangerous effects (in mood, growth, behavior & school performance). I hope there will be articles addressing this.
I agree.
I agree this article lacks depth and the methods of this study does not to appear to be the most practical. However the advice on better sleep holds merit. Since I am sleep deprived myself, It's more than likely that I won't remember reading this within the next hour.
Sleep Study
I disagree with the method of this study. Most folks I know aren't sleep deprived as a result of staying awake for 30 hours. More realistic is a typical work week where you only get 4-5 hours a night and then use the weekend to make up the sleep. The study didn't address that at all. Also, I'm a night person. There's no doubt. I know people that are morning people. They would wake up early no matter what time they went to bed and will wind down in the night hours. I peak in the evening hours and rarely wake up early without an alarm. The study makes no mention of the type of person in the study and what their normal reactions are in the morning and at night. My morning type friends are clearly affected at night, even with enough sleep. I don't think the study addresses typical sleep deprivation issues or the range of people affected by it.