Weekend Lie-ins Won't Repay Your Sleep Debt

Previous research by Wright and others has shown that insufficient sleep can boost risk of obesity and diabetes, in part by boosting the urge to snack at night and decreasing insulin sensitivity – or the ability to regulate blood sugar. Some adverse metabolic health impacts can kick in after just one night of lost sleep, recent CU Boulder research has shown. Sleeping in on the weekend can help the body recover mildly during those two days, studies suggest. But the effects don’t last. Weekend recovery Wright and lead author Chris Depner, an assistant research professor of Integrative Physiology, wanted to determine what happens when people cycle back and forth between a sleep-deprived work week and a few days of catch-up. Both sleep-restricted groups snacked more at night, gained weight and saw declines in insulin sensitivity during the study period. While those in the weekend recovery group saw a few mild improvements (including reduced nighttime snacking) during the weekend, those benefits went away when the sleep-restricted work week resumed. “In the end, we didn’t see any benefit in any metabolic outcome in the people who got to sleep in on the weekend,” said Depner. On some measures, the weekend recovery group showed worse outcomes. For instance, in the group which had their sleep restricted the whole time, whole body insulin sensitivity declined by 13 percent. In the weekend recovery group it worsened by 9 to 27 percent, with sensitivity in the muscles and liver scoring worse than the other groups. “It could be that the yo-yoing back and forth – changing the time we eat, changing our circadian clock and then going back to insufficient sleep is uniquely disruptive,” said Wright. This study demonstrates the importance of getting sufficient sleep on a regular schedule,” said Michael Twery, Ph.D., director of the National Center on Sleep Disorders Research (NCSDR). “Frequently changing sleep schedules is a form of stress associated with metabolic abnormalities.” https://www.technologynetworks.com/neuroscience/news/weekend-lie-ins-wont-repay-your-sleep-debt-316171?utm_campaign=NEWSLETTER_TN_Breaking%20Science%20News&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=70380447&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9f7POAqPOArcXdsJ_9pDt0BJdHsk0iQe2Y9uoc1pDIYKX-j1wd4nZsfmn26DAGpfdW8Gj14csz3FqSf2LUSqrWw_eujA&_hsmi=70380447