Sleep deprivation can make someone cranky the next day, and over time, it can mess up more than just the moring. According to studies, getting quality sleep on a regular basis helps improve all sorts of issues, such as blood sugar.
Having a complete sleep will give the person a sharper brain, mood boost, healthier heart, and athletic achievement, for those who are into sports. Moreover, WebMD also included to the list of the benefits of sleeping of having a steadier blood sugar, immune system boost, and good weight control.
However, there are circumstances that sleeping late could be inevitable. Some may think that their 'sleep debt' could be erased when they sleep more on the weekends. But according to a report by Medical Xpress, French researchers said that once Saturday and Sunday have come and gone, many will find themselves still seriously short on sleep.
'Sleep Debt' Cannot Be Erased on Weekends
The research gathered 12,000 participants who are adults that only get six hours of sleep or less during weekdays. That is far less than most people need, which is seven to eight hours per night, according to study author Dr. Damien Leger, chief of Hotel Dieu Center of Sleep and Vigilance at the Public Assistance Hospital of Paris.
Nearly one-quarter of the participants said that they had been racking up a severe weekday 'sleep debt' with at least 90 minutes or less than the amount of sleep that they should have.
On the other hand, 75% of the participants with sleep debt said that they did not find their way of getting more sleep on the weekend or by napping, Leger said.
He explained that they might not have found the time to do it due to unsatisfactory conditions to sleep, either because of a noisy environment or stress on children at home. In the end, they still did not recover or erased their sleep debt.
When participants are asked about their sleeping routines, the researchers found that the average amount of daily weekday sleep was pegged at six hours and 42 minutes. But on weekends, this slightly increases to seven hours and 26 minutes.
About 27% of them said they took naps at least once during the week, and about one-third of the participants said they did so on weekends.
Only 18%of the sleep-deprived participants said that they were able to make up for their sleep debt on weekdays, and men fared poorly, with just 15% of them managed to balance their sleep by sleeping more hours on the weekend.
Leger noted that it is a severe problem and common among people in Western countries, especially in urban areas.
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Sleep deprivation: Causes and effect
Leger pointed out that night work, shift work, long commutes from home to workplace, and excessive attachment to technology like smartphones and computers drive sleep deprivation.
He warns that if continued, sleep deprivation could be translated to a wide array of health issues such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, depression, and accidental injury.
According to Adam Krause, a Ph. D. candidate in cognitive neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, the CDC estimates 1 out of 3 Americans sleep less than seven hours per night. This amount of sleep has steadily decreased over the past decades.
"Sleep loss is a potent form of whole-body stress," Krause said. "So, it impacts function at every level of the body, from DNA to cells, to organs, to performance at work or exercise."
He cautioned that sleep deprivation is a problem without a simple remedy. In the end, the best sleep diet is still having sufficient and consistent sleep.
