Walk is wobbly? You might need to sleep

Not having enough sleep has a lot of adverse effects on one's body, and a group of researchers in Brazil has added yet another negative side effect: a lack of control when it comes to one's gait, or manner of walking.

The study, which was published in Scientific Reports, involved groups of Brazilian university students who were asked to go on with their usual routines for two weeks before the study. While both groups were already sleep-deprived because of university life, one group compensated for their lack of sleep during weekends while the other did not. Another group was asked to stay awake the night before a treadmill test.

Compared to the other two groups, the sleep-deprived group performed the worst, with the study's lead author, Arturo Forner-Cordero, saying that they “were off the rhythm, they missed beeps, and were performing, in general, worse.” Meanwhile, the group that compensated for their lack of sleep during the weekends performed the best.

Hermano Igo Krebs, another of the study's authors, said that while the ideal is to have eight hours of sleep, those who are unable to fill that quota should “compensate as much and as regularly as possible.”

The study also underscored the other adverse effects brought about by sleep deprivation. Using shift workers as an example, the study said that chronic sleep deprivation resulted in “a higher risk of suffering metabolic or cardiovascular problems, as well as attention and learning deficits.”

Another study published in October also emphasized the need to hit the “sweet spot” when it comes to the amount of sleep one gets.

In that study, it showed that there was a decrease in cognitive scores for participants who had too little or too much sleep, making them more vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease.