Can weekend “recovery sleep” make up for too little sleep during the work week? According to new research, not so much.
Researchers at Penn State University College of Medicine placed 30 study participants on a sleep schedule designed to mimic a sleep-restricted workweek followed by a weekend with extra recovery sleep.
The result suggests that recovery sleep over just a single weekend may not reverse all the effects of sleep loss during the workweek.
During sleep restriction, levels of a hormone that’s a marker of stress didn’t change, but were significantly lower after recovery.
However, the participants’ scores on a performance test that assessed their ability to pay attention dropped significantly after sleep restriction and did not improve after recovery.
The researchers found that after five days of restricted sleep, the participants were much sleepier than they were at the beginning of the study. Their interleukin-6 levels also increased sharply during restricted sleep, though their cortisol levels remained the same. Their performance on the attention test also got worse.
After two days of recovery sleep, tests showed that the participants were less sleepy. Their interleukin-6 levels reduced, and their cortisol levels decreased significantly compared to baseline, possibly suggesting that the volunteers were sleep-deprived before the study started.
Interestingly, however, their performance on the attention test didn’t improve after recovery sleep.
Though many indicators of health and well being improved after recovery sleep, these findings show that extra weekend sleep may not fix all the deficits created by lost sleep during the workweek.
“Two nights of extended recovery sleep may not be sufficient to overcome behavioral alertness deficits resulting from mild sleep restriction,” the authors said. “This may have important implications for people with safety-critical professions, such as health-care workers, as well as transportation system employees (drivers, pilots, etc.).”
Source:
http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/10/15/making-up-sleep-deficits-on-weekend-may-not-really-work/60758.html