What your sleep patterns say about your health
Editor’s Note: Vital Signs is a monthly program bringing viewers health stories from around the world. Story highlights Experts say a frequent desire to nap or sleep late could be a sign of a health problem Sleeping in over the weekend could lead to "social jet lag" One to two weeks should be enough time to catch up on lost sleep CNN — Do you sleep between seven to nine hours per night? “That’s an attempt to pay back sleep deprivation,” says Charles Czeisler, chief of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. The extra hours of sleep, but more important the later time of awakening, on weekends leads to confusion and displacement in the body when people return to their weekday routine – something Czeisler defines as “social jet lag.” “If you’re getting up at 6 a.m. and then noon, that’s the equivalent of Boston to Paris” in time zones, he says. “You can’t pay it all back at once,” Czeisler said of the need to slowly pay back sleep loss accumulated over time.
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