It’s Important To Know Your ‘Sleep Type.’ Here’s Why.

You’re probably well aware of your personality type, like whether you’re an introvert or extrovert. You might even know your love language. But have you ever considered your sleep type?

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University recently released a study that helps people determine their sleep type and what it means for their overall health. The data, which was published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, was made up of 3,683 middle-aged adults in the United States. Participants reported their chronic health conditions and sleep metrics — sleep duration, satisfaction, regularity, alertness and efficiency — twice during the study’s 10-year period.

Researchers then categorized participants into one of four different sleep types:

• Good sleepers: Those who had ideal sleep habits
• Weekend catch-up sleepers: People who had irregular, reduced sleep on weekdays and slept longer on the weekends or their days off
• Insomnia sleepers: Those who didn’t sleep for very long and had daytime sleepiness
• Nappers: Individuals who had good sleep but took frequent naps during the day

“I think that the four categories that they explained was a good way to kind of sum up the broad spectrum of what we see within clinical sleep disorders … and [the] kind of patients that come to our clinic,” said Dr. Kenneth Lee, the medical director of the University of Chicago’s Medicine Sleep Disorders Center. Lee was not affiliated with the study.

“Now, obviously, we don’t see the good sleepers. If you’re sleeping well, you’re not going to see a sleep doctor. But oftentimes, we see the other categories,” he said.

More than half of the study participants fell into the “suboptimal” napper or insomnia-sleeper categories. Throughout the 10-year study period, participants’ sleep type largely stayed the same.

“These results may suggest that it is very difficult to change our sleep habits because sleep health is embedded into our overall lifestyle. It may also suggest that people still don’t know about the importance of their sleep and about sleep health behaviors,” study author Soomi Lee said in a press release.

Researchers found that insomnia sleepers were more likely to develop health conditions like diabetes, cardiovascular disease and depression. Nappers were also more likely to develop these conditions, but less…