A new study found that many Americans trade a good night's sleep for paid work time.
The findings suggest chronic sleep loss could be avoided through strategies that make work time more flexible, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine reported.
The study found work is the primary activity exchanged for sleep in the U.S., and this is true across all sociodemographic categories.
The team found those who reported sleeping six hours or less also tended to work an average of 1.55 more hours on the weekdays and 1.86 more hours on weekends and holidays compared with those who had a normal sleeping schedule. These individuals also generally woke up earlier in the morning and went to bed later at night.
Those with the highest odds of being "short sleepers" were individuals working multiple jobs; this group was 61 percent more likely than others to report having gotten six hours of sleep or less on a holiday or weekend. Those who were absent from work or retired were reported to be the least likely to be short sleepers.
"The evidence that time spent working was the most prominent sleep thief was overwhelming," said lead author Mathias Basner, assistant professor of sleep and chronobiology in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia.
Short sleepers were also found to start commuting earlier in the morning and stopped later in the evening than normal sleepers.
"Potential intervention strategies to decrease the prevalence of chronic sleep loss in the population include greater flexibility in morning work and class start times, reducing the prevalence of multiple jobs, and shortening morning and evening commute times," Basner said.
The team found for every hour later that work started in the morning, there was an approximate 20 minute increase in sleep time. Participants slept an average of only six hours if they started working before 6 a.m.
"Getting at least seven hours of nightly sleep is essential to be at your mental, emotional and physical best for whatever you will pour yourself into, either at work or at home," said American Academy of Sleep Medicine President Dr. Timothy Morgenthaler, who was not involved in the study.
To make their findings the researchers looked at analyzed from 124,517 Americans 15 years and older who completed the American Time Use Survey (ATUS) between 2003 and 2011. The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Sleep
