First of all, allow me to apologize for the misleading title of this post.
I may never actually catch up on my sleep. At least not until my working years are over.
I could probably count the number of nights that I have slept eight hours straight since my son was born in the summer of 1998 on my fingers and toes. And many of those nights would be when I was sick and/or on medication.
I won't go into great detail because that could be a book in itself. Suffice it to say that between being waken up by baby cries, then by my lovely wife's snoring and the ever-present light and sound pollution at the house where we have resided since ten days before 9/11, a good night's sleep is elusive for me.
Many studies and articles abound that suggest that we get eight hours per night or at least seven as adults. As you know, growing kids need more.
After spending three nights in Las Vegas last week, in which I combined for a total of maybe five or six hours of sleep, it felt good to get home and catch up with some seven hour nights of sleep. Maybe even an eight hour night on Saturday after having a few cocktails and taking my version of a sleep aid, a.k.a. Tylenol PM. I used to take Advil PM, which is even stronger, but it caused my stomach enough problems that my doctor told me to stop taking it, which I did.
After three solid nights of sleep back home last week, I found an article in last Sunday's paper about a Swedish study concluding that sleeping in on weekend helps, whcih made me feel ever so slightly better about my long-term health prospects.
It would be hard for me to pinpoint my exact average, and I am not the kind of mensch who could sleep well if I was wearing some electronic device measuring my sleep. I know that I wake up at least once per night to empty my bladder, something not too uncommon for guys my age but mostly afflicting those older than me. I cannot imagine that it is something that will improve with age.
If I was put on a witness stand before God and had to swear on a Torah, I would guesstimate that I average about five-and-a-half hours per weeknight and about seven hours per weekend night. The only reason that I would not say six hours per weeknight is that I have completely sleepless nights a few times per month and a zero or one-hour night of sleep can bring down the average quickly.
A study by a bunch of Swedish dudes with names like Torbjorn, Hans-Olov and Ylva in the Journal of Sleep Research and the ensuing article called Sleep duration and mortality – Does weekend sleep matter? addresses this important issue for guys like me.
I have been attempting to "catch up" on my sleep for the two-and-a-half decades since I entered the workforce on weekends.
Anyway, like a good politician, the Torbjorn crew hints around the fact that for people under the age of 65 who sleep for five hours or less every night all week who caught an extra hour or two on weekends lived just as long as those who slept seven hours.
Now, I am not Swedish and chances that you are not either. But we are hard-working people and if you are able to sleep like a baby through the night every night, well Bully For You!
If you are more like me and struggle for consistent shut-eye during the week, then this is good news. If I could count how many times I have read about the myriad problems that result from poor sleep, including higher blood pressure, memory loss and a greater risk of getting the Big C.
In Akerstedt's study, he writes that when, instead, different combinations of weekday and weekend sleep durations were analysed, they observed a detrimental association with consistently sleeping less than five hours or more than eight hours, compared with consistently sleeping six to seven hours per day.
The mortality rate among participants with short sleep during weekdays, but long sleep during weekends, did not differ from the rate of the reference group. Among individuals under sixty-five years old, no association between weekend sleep or weekday/weekend sleep durations and mortality was observed.
In conclusion, their study determined that short, but not long, weekend sleep was associated with an increased mortality in subjects under sixty-five years of ages. In the same age group, short sleep (or long sleep) on both weekdays and weekend showed increased mortality.
Possibly, long weekend sleep may compensate for short weekday sleep.
As for me, if long weekend sleep may compensate for short weekday sleep, I am going to keep going back to sleep for an hour or two after I wake up at my normal time to use the washroom.
That may be TMI for you, but if you are in the same sleeping boat as I am, it is worth knowing.
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