Saturday, 30 April 2016

“The weekend is for catching up on your Zzz's”—& Other Sleep Myths

Artist extraordinaire James Grasdal is putting the finishing touches on the 13th book in the Superman Duffy comic series—MYTHCONCEPTIONS. Which, you may have guessed has a little something to do with common “myths.” I love myths! So for this year’s A to Z Blogging Challenge, I’m going to “bust” as many of them as I can—every day (except Sundays) on the blog, throughout April.

Not familiar with the A to Z Challenge? Get the details here, and then hang on, because I’m about to blow your mind with my myth-inspired posts.  P.S. Comment on the blogs throughout the month for a chance to WIN a complete set of the SupermanDuffy comics, including lucky #13, MYTHCONCEPTIONS.
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MYTH: The weekend is for catching up on your Zzz's.

Whew! We did it—the END of the 2016 #AtoZchallenge. I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted. And since today is Saturday, I plan to use the rest of the weekend to catch up on my sleep.

Or not.

The whole idea that you can “bank” sleep hours for the weekend is actually a myth. If you’ve had a busy week (or month!), a common misconception is that you can catch up on any hours you missed by sleeping in on the weekend. Studies show that this isn’t enough to restore you for the week ahead. And in fact, if you get too little sleep during the week and sleep away your Saturday (for instance), you could be accumulating a chronic sleep debt. That doesn’t sound good to me!

So how much sleep should you get? It depends. Research shows that teenagers really do need an extra couple of hours, they’re not just “lazy” like my dad always suggests. And no matter what my grandpa claims, you can’t get by on only four hours of Zzz's—at least not long term. Watching TV doesn’t help you sleep. Neither does counting sheep, by the way.

So many myths—and that’s just scraping the surface. A simple Google search netted more than 50 sleep misconceptions. I’d list them all but * yawn * I’m heading back to bed. Binge sleeping may not be healthy, but according to some scientists, an afternoon nap is absolutely fine.

And there we have it—my final blog in the #AtoZChallenge. What a month it’s been! I’ll be back next week with my regular Friday post, but if you haven’t already, take a peek through my #AtoZChallenge archives. And feel free to comment on past posts—you never know, you might be the winner of a set of Superman Duffy comics. A random winner will be chosen on Monday!

Thanks again for sticking with me this month. I’ve gotta jet, but I’ll see you next week!


~ Chase Superman Duffy

2 comments:

  1. I also heard it is better to wake up your normal time on the weekends like you do during the week and then if you are tired to take an afternoon nap. That might be some truth in that in that 9/10 weekend mornings hubby or me normally awaken at the time we would during the work week; and sometimes don't end up falling back to sleep.

    Congrats on making it through the challenge! Sounded like you had a cute theme!

    betty
    http://viewsfrombenches.blogspot.com/

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  2. Hi Betty,
    I wanted to thank you for commenting / supporting my A to Z Challenge this year by sending you a set of the Chase books—but I can't find your contact info to direct email you. Could you please email your address to me at chase.superman.duff@gmail.com? Thank you!

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