Written by Sade Oguntola
~The Nigeria Tribune. Thursday, July 6, 2017.
Waking up early on workdays – only to sleep on your days off – is a common practice. While it can seem intuitive to rest, experts in this report by SADE OGUNTOLA, say oversleeping on days off may be inimical to health.
In many big cities, many people wake up early, say, 4 am, to get to work by 8am, but on the weekends, they will want to sleep in. But the cost of delaying sleep till Saturday and Sunday is much greater than many people may think.
Lack of sleep-especially on a regular basis-is associated with long-term health consequences, including chronic medical conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease, and these conditions may lead to a shortened life expectancy.
In a new study, researchers said that sleeping in on weekends to catch up with sleep deficit, what is now termed social jet lag, is connected with poor health, bad mood, and increased sleepiness and fatigue.
It doesn't boost energy levels. In fact, they said that it has the opposite effect. It disrupts the body's internal clock so much that just a few extra hours makes a person feel even more tired than normal on Monday morning.
Could weekend lie-in kill?
The preliminary analysis of the study reported at SLEEP 2017, the joint annual meeting of the American Society of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society that each hour of social jet lag is also related to an 11 per cent increase in the likelihood of heart disease.
These effects are independent of the duration of the sleep and insomnia symptoms, which are associated with both social jet lag and health.
Sleeping in on weekends, a common habit
Sleeping in on weekends is a luxury that seemingly many people assume would translate to a net positive for health, rather than a negative.