February 28, 2019 | 10:05pm | Updated February 28, 2019 | 10:05pm
Americans’ habit of trying to catch up on sleep during weekends after long workweeks of not getting enough shut-eye is wreaking havoc on waistlines.
That binge-and-bust pattern does not stop the overeating that often goes with not getting enough Zzzs, says a study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.
“This process of not getting enough sleep, trying to recover, and not getting enough sleep again, doesn’t seem to be an effective strategy,” said Kenneth Wright, co-author of the University of Colorado Boulder study. “This says that we probably can’t use the weekend to recover from four or five days of not getting enough sleep.”
To find out, Wright and his colleagues studied 36 participants who spent 10 nights in a lab. The participants who slept five hours during the week and as long as they wanted on weekends couldn’t regulate their metabolisms.
“As soon as they went back to the short sleep schedules on Monday, the ability of their body to regulate blood sugar was impaired,” Wright said.
So make sure to get your recommended seven hours every night.
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