Poor sleep habits are strongly associated with long-term chronic health conditions, according to decades of research. To better understand this relationship, a team led by researchers in Penn State's College of Health and Human Development identified four distinct patterns that characterize how most people sleep. These patterns are also predictive of long-term health, the researchers said.
Weekend catch-up sleepers, who are characterized by irregular sleep, specifically short average sleep duration, but longer sleep times on weekends or non-workdays. "These results may suggest that it is very difficult to change our sleep habits because sleep health is embedded into our overall lifestyle. It may also suggest that people still don't know about the importance of their sleep and about sleep health behaviors," Lee said."We need to make more efforts to educate the public about good sleep health.
All these findings strongly suggest the need for programs and interventions to promote healthy sleep and sleep habits, the researchers said. The identification of distinct sleep patterns also suggests that these prevention programs should not be one-size-fits-all and can be targeted based on a variety of factors, including the risk of chronic conditions and socioeconomic vulnerability.
Soomi Lee, Claire E. Smith, Meredith L. Wallace, Orfeu M. Buxton, David M. Almeida, Sanjay R. Patel, Ross Andel.People who have very irregular sleep patterns may have a higher risk of dementia than those who have more regular sleep patterns, according to new research. The study does not prove that sleep ...