Ben Franklin once said "early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise," but it may be that he only got half of it right.
A new Japanese study is now linking a lack of sleep with cardiovascular problems such as high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries.
But Dr. Siobhan Banks, a research assistant professor in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, said the total sleep time is really the most important thing, not so much waking up early.
"If you try to get a good amount of sleep, that will be much more beneficial to your health, performance and memory," she said.
Banks and the Japanese researcher, Dr. Mayuko Kadono, presented similar studies in early September at the World Congress of the World Federation of Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine Societies in Australia.
Banks said the study she conducted involved 30 healthy subjects between the ages of 22 and 45.
During the first part of the study, called the baseline, the subjects got 10 hours of sleep two nights in a row. The second part of the study consisted of the subjects going to bed at 4 a.m. and waking up at 8 a.m. for five days in a row.
Heart rates were monitored throughout the study and then compared to see if there had been any changes from the baseline heart rates.
Banks said they did, in fact, see changes -- an increased heart rate and a decrease in heart rate variability.
"This basically gives you an idea of the stress on the heart," Banks said. "A normal healthy young person would have a high heart rate variability where the heart can quickly respond to different stimuli. When the heart rate variability is decreased, the heart doesn't respond as well to stimuli, and this is an indicator of heart disease."
She said that generally means the heart has to work harder. She added, though, that this is a suggestion from preliminary data and that further research will be conducted.
But have no fear, college students. Not all hope is lost because of that 8 a.m. lecture. Banks said there is something called "sleep recovery."
"You can use those weekends to get some recovery sleep," she said. "It does seem to be, that certainly for your cognition and memory and reaction time, all those things can recover quite quickly, but you have to give yourself that good opportunity for sleep."
Some students, though, do try to get a good amount of sleep each night, despite their busy schedules.
Brendan Hunt (sophomore-biopsychology) said he usually gets six hours of sleep a night, and it's just a part of life that college students in today's society get less sleep.
Other students rely heavily on a solid eight hours of sleep.
"I love sleeping and to function properly, I need eight hours," Jackie Berkowitz (senior-communications, sciences and disorders) said. "I just don't feel as good, and the less sleep I get the more I feel it. Just last week I started drinking coffee, so I'm pretty upset with that."
Banks said not to think of sleep as being lazy, but to enjoy it.
"Enjoy your sleep and allow yourself to sleep," Banks said. "It's not something that's lazy. It's healthy and will help you study during the week and can solidify some of those new things you've been learning through the week. Have a healthy sleeping weekend."
