Binge-sleeping is bad for creativity, study says
Life can get hectic at times, leaving us in need of an extended, restorative snooze-fest. However, a recent study found a huge problem with trying to balance out a lack of shut-eye by sleeping an entire day away. Brace yourselves: Binge sleeping is bad for creativity. We know. There goes your plan to sleep through the weekend. Take a second to unleash those screams of shock and horror because how else are you going make up for not getting a good night’s sleep on a regular basis?
We don’t have the answer for that, but now that we know binge sleeping is not a friend of creativity, it’s clear that juggling of all your responsibilities and still getting in the proper amount of zzzs should be even more of a priority for everyone, particularly if we expect our brains to continue providing us with new, sparkly ideas that make our existence less boring.
As Brit + Co. reports, researchers from Baylor University’s Sleep Neuroscience and Cognition Laboratory surveyed 28 undergraduate women from the school’s interior design program. The subjects underwent cognitive ability testing prior to and after the study and were given fitness trackers and asked to document their sleep habits in a diary. The researchers learned that the women recorded more hours of sleep than they were actually getting, with many of them sleeping less than seven hours a night, at least three times a week.
The cognitive tests revealed that the many of the women experienced irregular sleep patterns that resulted in nights of long and short durations. The findings published in the Journal of Interior Design concluded that those students who binge slept showed a marked decrease in creativity, while their unbalanced sleep cycles didn’t appear to have any negative impacts on their prospective memory.
So, them’s the breaks, people! The next time you receive that late-night query from Netflix asking if you’re still watching, it may be in your best interest to save those last few episodes of your favorite show for a time when you’re not too sleepy to enjoy it.
