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Sleeping in on the weekends when you’re used to getting up early all week can affect your mood and increase your risk for depression, a new study finds.
Experts at Michigan Medicine, the University Medical Center at the University of Michigan, used sleep and mood data from 2,100 early-career physicians recruited over a year.
An irregular sleep schedule can increase the risk of depression just as much as sleeping fewer hours overall or going to bed regularly late, they found.
Sleeping on a Sunday can even affect your Monday morning mood, they found, and make you as cranky as you would be if you were up late on Sunday night.
The researchers did not study the effect of mixed sleep schedules on the general population, but believe it could apply to anyone with irregular sleep patterns.
Sleeping in on the weekends when you’re used to getting up early all week can affect your mood and increase your risk for depression, a new study finds.
The medical interns in this study were in their first year of residency after medical school and were experiencing long, intense workdays and irregular schedules – changing day by day with no real structure.
These changes altered their ability to have regular sleep schedules and made them the perfect test subjects for a study of irregular sleep and mood patterns.
The data was collected by tracking their sleep and other activities using wrists and asking them to record their mood on a smartphone app.
They also took quarterly tests for depression throughout the year-long study.
The new article, published in the journal npj Digital Medicine, explores the impact of this unusual mix of interrupted and irregular sleep on the mind.
The study authors found that those whose devices showed they had variable sleep schedules were more likely to score higher on standardized depression symptom questionnaires and to have d ratings. lower daily mood.
Those who regularly stayed up late, or slept the fewest hours, also had higher scores on symptoms of depression and less on daily mood.
The findings add to what is already known about the association between sleep, daily mood and long-term risk of depression.
“Advanced wearable technology allows us to study behavioral and physiological factors of mental health, including sleep, on a much larger scale and with more precision than ever before,” says Yu Fang, lead author of the new article. .
“Our results aim not only to guide the self-management of sleep habits, but also to inform institutional planning structures,” added the research specialist.
Fang is part of the Intern Health Study team, led by Srijan Sen, MD, Ph.D., who has been studying the mood and depression risk of first-year medical residents for over a decade.
The study collected an average of two weeks of data before the doctors began their internship years, and an average of four months of follow-up throughout the year.
Cathy Goldstein, MD, MS, associate professor of neurology and physician at the Sleep Disorders Center at Michigan Medicine, said wearable devices that estimate sleep are now used by millions of people around the world.
Experts at Michigan Medicine, the University of Michigan’s academic medical center, used sleep and mood data from 21,000 early-career physicians recruited over one year
This includes the Fitbit devices used in the study, other activity trackers, and smartwatches such as the Apple Watch.
“These devices, for the first time, allow us to record sleep over long periods of time without user effort,” Goldstein says.
“We still have questions regarding the accuracy of sleep predictions from consumption trackers, although initial work suggests similar performance to clinical and research grade actigraphy devices that are approved by the FDA.
Sen said the new findings build on what his team’s work has already shown about the high risk of depression among new doctors.
“These results highlight sleep consistency as an underestimated factor to target in depression and well-being,” he says.
“The work also highlights the potential of wearable devices to understand important health-related concepts that we previously could not study on a large scale.
The team notes that the relatively young group of people participating in the study – with an average age of 27 and holding both university and medical degrees – are not representative of the general population.
However, since all of them have similar workloads and schedules, they make a good group to test hypotheses and get a “big” view of the wider population.
The researchers hope other groups will study other populations using similar devices and approaches, to see if the findings on varying sleep schedules hold up for them and therefore can be applied to the population more broadly.
Fang, for example, notes that parents of young children might be another important group to study.
“I also wish my one-year-old could learn more about these findings and not wake up until 8:21 am every day,” she jokes.
The results were published in the journal npj Digital Medicine.
Exposure to blue light from phones and computer screens ‘makes it harder to fall asleep’
A leading optometrist, Dhruvin Patel is an expert on the impact of blue light on eye health – that is, the light produced by phone and computer screens.
Blue light can make it harder to fall asleep and impact eye health
Researchers say that exposure to blue light could increase the risk of damage to eyesight and make it harder to fall asleep.
Patel shared his tips for minimizing the impact of blue light while working from home or using screens.
1. Work at arm’s length from the screen
Fully extend your arm and work from a distance – looking from your eyes to your fingertips.
Use it as a minimum distance to reduce stress on your eyeballs.
2. 20/20/20
Simply put, every 20 minutes look away from the screen for at least 20 seconds from at least 6 meters away.
This will help reset your visual systems and your eyes during long periods of screen work.
3. Screen height
The height and level of your working screen can have a big impact on eye strain.
Research has shown that the screen is best located higher than the users ‘monitoring level – the midpoint should be 5-6 inches below the straight line of users’ vision.
This makes the space between the upper and lower eyelids more open, which often results in dry eyes.
4. Lighting
Position the computer screen to avoid glare, especially from overhead lighting or windows.
Use blinds or curtains on windows and replace light bulbs on desk lamps with bulbs of lower wattage and intensity.
If there’s no way to minimize glare from light sources, consider using an anti-glare filter.
5. Put a post-it on your screen titled “FLASHING”.
Normally in a minute we blink up to 20 times. This is controlled automatically by our central nervous system, so we are unaware of blinking.
On screens, this is actually reduced to 3-5 times per minute, which means our tear films cannot be maintained and the eye does not stay lubricated.
A post-it-note on your monitor saying “Blinking” should help you make a conscious effort to blink. It’s simple but it really works.
6) consider your device
Usually the bigger and newer phone is better, but not for your eyes. An iPhone X is 20% brighter than an iPhone 6 and emits higher levels of blue light.
That’s the difference of a 100% increase in exposure to harmful blue light!
7. Don’t forget to turn off
I would suggest no digital devices or artificial lighting after sunset. If you’re like most people, you’re probably sending that last-minute email or ending your favorite show on Netflix before bed.
Try reading a book or starting the meditation you vowed to do in the New Year.
Dhruvin Patel says you shouldn’t assume that the “ night mode ” or the “ blue shade ” on devices is enough to counter the impact of blue light.
He said this “ has been found not to promote sleep over normal output from a screen ” and that even with this option enabled, you should still avoid the screen after sunset if possible. .
Patel founded a company called Ocushield which produces screen protectors to filter blue light based on his research into the impact of the light source.
Source: Dhruvin Patel (Ocushield)
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