We knew we should have stayed firmly tucked under that duvet...
It’s Monday, we KNEW we should have stayed firmly tucked under the duvet, and now science has totally backed us up.
Yes, hitting the snooze button and sleeping in is officially good for your health, and actually means you’ll have less days off sick from work.
According to new research published in the medical journal, Sleep, the less time you spend in the land of nod, the more colds you’ll get. Simples.
In a slightly freaky experiment, 164 people were given trackers that monitored their sleep for a week, returning to the lab to have a live cold virus shot up their noses (sure), before being quarantined in a (hopefully 5*) hotel for five days.
Researchers observed to see who would get ill and the amount of sleep that the human guinea pigs got was the strongest predictor of infection - more than BMI, age or any other factor.
Those who had six hours of sleep or less were four times more likely to catch the cold than those who slept for at least seven hours, Time concluded of the results, with the risk increasing even more if the participant had slept for even less time.
So ultimately there’s a link between how much sleep you’re getting and how likely you are to catch that cold that’s flying around the office.
And, more importantly, we all should have stayed in bed this morning, no questions asked.
Well, at least we now know for tomorrow…