the case for sleeping in, sleep debt

Settle into a good old-fashioned book: In a 2014 PNAS journal <a href=http://www.pnas.org/content/112/4/1232 target=_blank>study</a>, subjects who read on digital devices took longer to fall asleep and felt sleepier the next day, even after eight hours of shut-eye, compared to a control group who read on paper. Blue light not only suppresses melatonin, it reduces your amount of REM sleep. Give Netflix and your digital gadgets a rest, so you can, too.Go to bed as soon as you can:Humans are primed to sleep when it’s naturally dark. Individual variations exist, but essentially, says Allison Brager, Ph.D., a sleep scientist with Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, “We’ve evolved to be day-active creatures.” Drastic, chronic shifts to our circadian rhythms wreak havoc on them: Expecting to show up at work by 9 a.m. after a weekend of sleeping in till noon is like jet lag (except you haven’t gone anywhere exotic)—or shift work, which, over time, has been shown to wreak havoc on <a href=http://oem.bmj.com/content/early/2014/10/08/oemed-2013-101993 target=_blank>memory</a>, how fast you think, and cognition in general. “Sleep during the day looks different than at night,” says Elizabeth Klerman, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. By all means, sleep into the afternoon if that’s the only time you can, but otherwise, why stay up late when you don’t have to? “You need tell yourself ‘I’m worth it,’” she says. “It’s the easiest thing to do and it will make you feel better."Pay back debt over several days: If you’re a night owl, take baby steps, says Scott Kutscher, M.D., a sleep specialist at The Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine. On Friday and Saturday, set your alarm close to your weekday wake-up time, but turn in a little earlier (even 15 minutes will add up over time) than when you’re typically capable of falling asleep. Naps can help, too; keep them at 20 minutes or less to avoid feeling groggy afterward. Not only will they make you feel more alert and nimble immediately upon waking, they’ll count toward your total sleep hours. The whole process may take several days to pay back your sleep debt, but you’ll make that time in bed really count.

The right way to sleep in

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