Irregular sleep routine linked to higher health risks, study finds

Author: A. Pawlowski

Having an erratic sleep schedule can do a number on your health.

Mess up your sleep schedule and you could mess up your health — even if you think you get enough sleep.

Having an irregular bedtime routine and getting different amounts of sleep from night to night was linked to higher chances of having metabolic syndrome, which raises a person’s risk for heart disease, a new study published in Diabetes Care has found.

That means caution for people who might go to bed at 10 p.m. one night and 2 a.m. on the next, for example. Or those who get seven hours of sleep one night, and 10 hours the next.

Every one-hour increase in the variability of how long a person sleeps from night to night was associated with 27% higher odds of metabolic syndrome, and every one hour increase in the variability of bed time was associated with 23% higher odds, researchers said.

“We consistently see that no matter how much people sleep, if they have irregular sleep schedules, they’re more likely to develop metabolic syndrome,” lead author Tianyi Huang, an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and associate epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told TODAY.
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