Erratic Sleepers Have More Health Problems: Study

Also tied to behavioral problems

(NEWSER) - Babies who get less than 12 hours of shut-eye a day double their risk of being overweight by the time they're 3 years old, a new study finds. The risk is even higher for little ones who watch two hours of TV a day, the Daily Telegraph reports. If habits aren't changed, more than 25% of all children are expected to be obese by 2050, experts warn. More»

People who disrupt biological clocks have higher BMIs

(NEWSER) - Your alarm clock could be making you flabby, suggests new research. People who force themselves to maintain schedules that are different from their natural sleep routines are more likely to put on the pounds, reports LiveScience . Researchers collected data from more than 65,000 Europeans and found that for every hour of sleep discrepancy between their work days and free days, the person was 33% more likely to have a higher BMI, a measure of fatness. More»

Tired research subjects ate hundreds more calories per day

(NEWSER) - You better be sleeping enough or you'll plump up, say scientists: Tiredness and sleep-deprivation may lead to snacking. A new study by the Mayo Clinic found that people who got less sleep than a normal night consumed hundreds more calories the next day compared to people who get a full night's rest, and the fatigued did not appear to burn off the extra calories, reports the Daily Mail . More»

It's more natural to sleep in two four-hour shifts

(NEWSER) - If you often wake up in the middle of the night and can’t fall back asleep right away, you probably call it “insomnia”—but it might actually be more natural than sleeping for eight hours straight. "The dominant pattern of sleep, arguably since time immemorial, was biphasic," a sleep historian tells Life’s Little Mysteries . What that means: Sleep came in two four-hour blocks, with a period of an hour or more in between during which people might pray, think about their dreams, or even visit with neighbors. More»

(NEWSER) - Think you can get by just fine on 6 hours of sleep a night? Unless you're part of a tiny portion of the population with a mutant gene, you better tuck yourself in a little earlier, reports USA Today. A new study in Science says 97% of the population needs about 8 hours a night to function at top form. The rest—and their numbers are ever dwindling—have a genetic mutation that blesses them with deep sleep and the need for less of it. More»