When you don’t sleep well or enough, your body’s ability to regulate blood sugar suffers. Several studies have found that chronic insomnia can increase the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. So does produce too little melatonin at night — the hormone that sets the stage for sleep. But if you’ve lost sleep during the week, can you catch up on the weekend sleep?
Sweet Weekend Sleep
A new study in men finds that if you’ve lost sleep during the week—especially if you’ve been getting six or fewer hours each night for three nights in a row — you may benefit from counting sheep on weekends. Making up those lost hours may help restore your blood sugar regulation.
Lead researcher Peter Liu, Ph.D., of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, had 19 sleep-deprived men stay for three nights in a sleep lab, over two different weekends. Data based on blood tests revealed the men who slept for ten hours per night had improvements in their sensitivity to insulin. Insulin, the hormone produced in the pancreas, regulates glucose in the blood (blood sugar). When insulin isn’t functioning properly, blood sugar isn’t being regulated and, over time, risk for developing Type 2 diabetes increases. The study was presented at the 2013 Endocrine Society meeting.
So should you burn the candle at both ends during the week, and crash on the weekend? Dream on. Even when your body re-regulates with a couple of weekend sleeps, it’s still not healthy to have impaired glucose metabolism during the week. Catching up on your sleep is a good idea, but it’s not enough.
Balanced Sleep
Even though this study puts a whole new spin on TGIF, we still need to remember to try our best to balance out sleep, eating and activity patterns to ensure living a healthful life. “Enough sleep, eating well and exercising properly are all part of a healthy lifestyle,” says Dr. Liu. “Just as one should eat well all the time (not eating whatever you want on weekdays and then eating well on weekends), one needs to plan to sleep enough all the time — not just on weekends.”
Yes, getting some extra sleep on the weekends is beneficial in terms of blood sugar regulation, and perhaps preventing diabetes, that says nothing for other components of our overall health. Every individual has different sleep needs at different times in their lives, but just remember, seven is usually the magic number.
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