The difference in awakening time between weekdays and weekends is associated with health problems

    image

    You get up to work at 6 in the morning, and why do you like to sleep off on weekends to exhaustion? But in vain. Psychologists from the University of Pittsburgh conducted a study proving that the large difference in waking time between weekends and working days leads to health problems.

    Shift work, in which people have to severely disrupt normal circadian rhythms , has long been recorded in the category of harmful factors provoking cardiometabolic syndrome and other health problems. And scientists from Pittsburgh under the leadership of Patricia M. Wong decided to study how the working rhythm imposed by society affects the health of people with different chronotypes (“larks” and “owls”).

    It turned out that any sleep disturbances, starting from the difference in regimes between working days and days off, and ending with early awakening for “owls,” are the causes of metabolic problems. Excess weight, insulin resistance (poor absorption of glucose by cells), the formation of visceral fat (fat accumulation around the internal organs) - all these problems are associated with improper sleep patterns.

    The production of various hormones that respond to metabolic processes - the accumulation of fat in tissues, digestion, the production of insulin - is tied to circadian rhythms. Violation of these rhythms leads to a disorder of the hormonal system.

    For researchscientists followed a group of 447 middle-aged people for a week. To accurately track periods of sleep and wakefulness, all subjects wore bracelets with accelerometers. The study schedule was compiled so as to necessarily include at least one night before the weekend - this way the effect of the difference in sleep duration on the weekday and day off was monitored. Researchers called this difference “social biorhythm disorder” (social jet lag, similar to jet lag, a sleep disorder associated with flying through several time zones).

    Interestingly, not a single person of the subjects supported the same sleep regimen on weekends as on weekdays. 85% of people woke up later than usual, while the average "shedding" was 44 minutes. At the same time, most often the subjects tried to win back on the weekend hours, which they did not sleep on weekdays. In general, it turned out that the greater the difference between the time of awakening on different days, the more health problems a person experiences.

    In a recent study, Japanese scientists discovered a special protein that is responsible for maintaining circadian rhythms in most living things.

    Also popular now: