The Reuters Health article titled Never Feel Bad About Sleeping In On The Weekend Again caught our eye. It’s been known that a persistent lack of sleep can increase risk factors for diabetes, but in a recent study, researchers found that sleeping in a couple of mornings after four nights of sleep deprivation can reverse some of the effects. According to the study’s lead author:

“It gives us some hope that if there is no way to extend sleep during the week, people should try very hard to protect their sleep when they do get an opportunity to sleep in and sleep as much as possible to pay back the sleep debt.”

But, they caution that getting extra sleep reverses some of the effects of sleep deprivation, but not all of them. This is in line with what sleep experts have warned us for a while: you can’t completely catch up on your sleep debt. In other words, if your body needs six hours of sleep per night, getting five hours per night during the week and then getting in an extra five hours over the weekend just isn’t a good substitute for ensuring that you get the amount of sleep you need each and every night.

If you’re not getting enough sleep, or if you think the quality of sleep you’re getting isn’t good enough (that is, if you’re going to bed early but you still feel tired when you wake up), you should take corrective action. In many instances, a sleep sound machine is an ideal solution. Advanced sleep machines like the Sound+Sleep, the new Sound+Sleep SE and the travel-ready Sound+Sleep MINI can help by masking environmental noises that can keep you from getting to sleep or which can wake you up in the middle of the night, even if you don’t remember it in the morning. These models use our exclusive Adaptive Sound technology, which listens to your environment constantly and adjusts the volume accordingly. And they sound great, too, with naturally recorded, high-definition sounds that constantly evolve and never loop.

If you believe you’re at risk for diabetes, take a look at your sleep patterns and talk to your doctor. The good news is that catching extra sleep on the weekends can help, but it’s not a substitute for consistently good sleep.