New Research Raises Health Concerns About Sleeping In During The Weekend
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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – After a busy week, most look forward to sleeping in on Saturdays. People may believe it does a body good, but new research says it does the exact opposite.
Solid, restful sleep is hard to come by during the workweek, though Eyewitness News did find many people who were hitting healthy sleep goals.
"I usually sleep about seven-and-a-half, eight hours," a woman said.
"I love to sleep. I get a solid eight-and-a-half or nine. I go to sleep at like 10 p.m.," another person said.
But many also fell in the opposite category.
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"During the week, I normally get like three hours because of work," a man said.
Enter the weekend, no better time to catch up on lost sleep. But a study published this week by the journal Current Biology found that sleeping in on weekends can't reverse the negative health effects of sleep deprivation.
"I always heard that you can't make up for it," a Philadelphia man said.
Correct. Research found that in sleep-deprived subjects, those who slept in on the weekend had increased sensitivity to insulin, which regulates blood sugar, leading to an average of three pounds gained over two weeks.
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That's just another reason to prioritize those seven or more hours of slumber.
"I don't have children," said one person. "It makes it much easier. I do have a cat, but I have an automatic feeder so he doesn't wake me up in the morning."
Researchers believe that part of the sleeping in and waking correlation likely also stems from a shift in eating habits, like pushing meals later in the day and since you're likely still sleep deprived, eating more to cope.
