Sleep Loss Can’t Be Made Up on the Weekends

I’ve been thinking a lot about making up for lost sleep as I’ve had my share of late and sleepless nights lately. Furthermore, I find I don’t bounce back as quickly as I used to from a poor night’s sleep and I require more sleep  in general to feel my best.  I’ve always believed that as long as I got a good night’s sleep for a few nights after missing sleep I was successfully making up for sleep loss. According to new research, however, several nights of sleep deprivation cannot be made up by a marathon sleep session. Instead, researchers found that chronic sleep loss leads to a rapid decline in the performance of tasks requiring focus.

Furthermore, an animal study by Northwestern University found that while rats will compensate for short-term sleep loss by sleeping longer and deeper, they stop doing so over time with chronic mild or “partial” sleep deprivation. The researchers speculate that their results may extend to the millions of Americans who regularly “undersleep” by a few hours during the work week.

Whether it be medical residents pulling 24-hour shifts in the ER or college students pulling occasional all-nighters, the effects of acute and especially chronic sleep deprivation are serious. Moreover, people whose jobs require odd-hours or long periods without sleep (such as nurses, truck drivers, security guards and firefighters) may not be able to perform at their best and may even be more vulnerable to accidents or fatal errors.

Beyond its important cognitive function, it is also during sleep that the body produces hormones and proteins needed for growth and repair.  Lack of sleep may also contribute to weight gain as leptin, the hormone that controls appetite is produced during sleep while ghrelin, another hormone that increases appetite, is produced  in greater abundance when sleep is lacking.

So get your Zzzzs….and 

Be Well, 

Carolyn

Tags: chronic sleep loss, sleep and weight gain