BALTIMORE—Sleeping late during the weekend may reverse the adverse effects associated with one workweek of mild sleep restriction, researchers reported at the 22nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies. Improvement was observed regarding daytime sleepiness and fatigue, as well as in interleukin 6 (IL-6) secretion levels, according to Edward O. Bixler, PhD, and colleagues.
Ten healthy individuals with a mean age of 24.9 (mean BMI, 23.9) underwent polysomnography in a sleep laboratory for 13 consecutive nights. The first four nights were considered baseline and consisted of eight hours of sleep per night. These were followed by six nights of partial sleep restriction, which consisted of six hours of sleep per night, and then three recovery nights, in which participants had 10 hours of sleep per night.
Benefits of Sleep Recovery
Sleep latency, as measured with use of the Multiple Sleep Latency Test, significantly decreased during sleep restriction and significantly improved after recovery sleep from 10.6 minutes (day 4) to 6.1 minutes (day 10), and then back to 13.2 minutes (day 13), reported Dr. Bixler, Professor of Psychiatry and Vice-Chair of Research at the Sleep Research and Treatment Center at Penn State University College of Medicine in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and colleagues. Sleep latency of 10 minutes indicates an average sleepiness, while a decrease in time reflects increased sleepiness.
Twenty-four–hour plasma levels of IL-6 increased significantly during the sleep restriction period and decreased to baseline levels after recovery sleep—averaged at 2.4 pg/mL (day 4), 3.1 pg/mL (day 10), and 2.1 pg/mL (day 13).
Consequences of Sleep Recovery
Dr. Bixler and colleagues concluded that extended recovery sleep of two days reverses the impact of one workweek of mild sleep restriction on daytime sleepiness and fatigue and IL-6 secretion. In addition, the findings suggest that IL-6 levels correspond to sleepiness and alertness following sleep restriction and recovery, respectively. However, the researchers noted, “The common sleep pattern alternating weekday restriction/weekend recovery sleep may lead to intermittent low-grade inflammation, of which long-term sequelae are unknown.”
—Marguerite Spellman