In an experiment at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., researchers persuaded 32 summer school student volunteers to keep diaries of the food s that they ate for three weeks and how much time they slept each day, including naps. After one week of baseline sleep and meal were assessed, the participants were told to try to stay in bed two hours longer a night for each night of week two. In week three they were allowed to return to their normal routine.

"What we found was that the students in week two would go to bed earlier and that then would eat nearly 300 calories a day less," said psychologist Jennifer Peszka, Ph.D., of Hendrix.

"We wondered whether the lower intake was due to the students just not recording their entire food intake -- getting tired of the task after two weeks," she said at her poster presentation. "But the food intake went up almost to baseline during the third week."

Dr. Peszka said that the sleep diaries showed that the students were getting about seven hours of sleep a day -- a sleep deprivation of about two hours for persons their age. At baseline, the students who said they felt sleepy during the daytime averaged about 2,100 calories of food a day compared with about 1,800 calories a day for the students who said they didn't feel sleepy. Both groups showed similar calorie dips in the second week when they were in bed longer.

Pages: 1  2  3  4