Year: 2022
Type: article
Abstract: Introduction Poor sleep hygiene is common in American college students, with the majority reporting insufficient sleep. Previous studies suggest that many students extend sleep during the weekend to recover sleep debt accrued during the week. In the current study we objectively measured sleep to determine if weekend catch-up sleep was practiced. We also provided students with a 9h sleep opportunity in order to observe how an extended sleep period affected sleep architecture. Methods Students (N=36, 20 women, 19.9±1.7 years) participated in the study from September 2019-March 2020. Sleep-wake behavior was assessed for two weeks using wrist actigraphy and a twice-daily diary. During this two-week period, participants wore at-home polysomnography (PSG) on two non-consecutive nights. For these two nights, in counterbalanced order, participants were instructed to follow their typical sleep pattern or to extend their sleep opportunity to 9h. Within-subjects ANOVA were used to compare sleep between week (Sunday-Thursday) and weekend (Friday and Saturday) nights as well as between typical and 9h PSG nights. Results Compared to week nights, participants went to bed 35 minutes later and woke up 58 minutes later on weekend nights (ps<0.01). Measures of sleep duration and sleep continuity were comparable (ps>0.10) between week and weekend nights and indicated that students averaged less than 7h of sleep per night (6.3±1.0h on week nights and 6.7±1.1h on weekend nights). Self-report measures of sleep quality and daytime sleepiness were also comparable between week and weekend nights (ps>0.05). When instructed to extend their sleep opportunity to 9h, participants exhibited high adherence and increased total sleep time by 88 minutes compared to the typical night (p<0.05). This increase in sleep was due to significant increases in time spent in all four stages of sleep (NREM S1-3 and REM sleep, ps<0.05). Conclusion In this study, students did not utilize weekend nights to extend sleep in order to recover accumulated sleep debt from the week. When provided with a 9h sleep opportunity, participants were physically able to extend sleep and exhibited high quality sleep, suggesting that the primary driver of insufficient sleep in this population is a lack of sleep opportunity rather than impaired sleep ability. Support (If Any)
Source: SLEEP
Authors: Andrea Spaeth, Emily Glavin
Institution: Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Language: English
Topic: Sleep and related disorders
Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Award: G3993405123
OpenAlex ID: W4281717578