The way people change their sleep habits can provide information about chronic and acute health problems, according to research from the University of California, San Diego, published in the journal npj Digital Medicine.

The research studied data on 33,000 people and their five million nights of sleep. Based on the analyses, the researchers identified five main types of sleep (phenotypes).

THE first phenotype is normal sleep, where people sleep about eight hours continuously for at least six consecutive days.

THE second phenotype is sleep, where people sleep continuously about half of the nights, but only sleep for short periods the other half.

To third phenotype people sleep mostly continuously, but experience intermittent sleep about one night each week.

To fourth phenotype people sleep mostly continuously, but experience rare nights in which long periods of sleep are separated by a mid-sleep awakening.

Finally, to fifth phenotype which represents extremely disturbed sleep, people only sleep for very short periods each night.

It found that how and how often a person switches between sleep phenotypes can provide two to ten times more information about health conditions, including diabetes, sleep apnea and Covid-19, than information about which we obtain from the average sleep phenotype of an individual.

What helped the researchers distinguish chronic conditions was not the average phenotype the participants adopted, but how often those sleep patterns changed. Even if someone changed phenotype infrequently, it could provide useful information about their health.

The researchers note that tracking changes in sleep over the long term on a population scale may yield new insights relevant to public health.