Why That “I’ll Sleep Later” Habit Might Be Making You Sick
2-minute read | 2026 | Prime Health UAE
A few years back, a group of scientists in San Francisco did something that sounds almost not real: they deliberately gave healthy people the common cold. On purpose. In a lab.
Here’s how it went. They found 164 volunteers and had them wear a wristband for a week the kind that tracks how much you sleep; not how much you think you sleep (there’s usually a gap). Then came one twist. Everyone was quarantined in a lab and given nose drops containing the actual cold virus. And the researchers just… watched. Who gets sick, who doesn’t?
You’d guess it comes down to luck. Maybe genetics, maybe how healthy someone already was. No. It came down to sleep almost entirely.
People sleeping six hours or less a night were roughly four times more likely to catch a cold than those getting seven-plus hours. In plain numbers: about 39 out of 100 short sleepers got sick. In the well-rested group? Just 18 out of 100. Two extra hours of sleep, and the odds are cut nearly in half.
Think about that next time you’re up at 2am scrolling or telling yourself “Just this once” before an early flight. Someone already ran that exact experiment; the results just weren’t in your favour.
Why does this matters way beyond just colds?
Most of us figure sleep mostly affects mood and energy: you’re tired, a bit irritable, that’s the whole cost. But the research doesn’t stop at “you’ll catch more colds.” Chronically, short-changing your sleep has also been linked to a higher risk of heart problems and other long-term conditions. The best guess for why: sleep is when your immune system does a lot of its quiet, unglamorous coordination work. Skip that, night after night, and the whole system starts running a little disorganised, a little more inflamed than it should be.
Okay, so what helps?
So next time “I’ll catch up this weekend” sounds like a plan, just remember, there’s a quarantined room in San Francisco that already tested that theory. It didn’t go great for the short sleepers.
Contact Information -If you have concerns about this blog, email me at drasiya@primehealth.ae or myprime@primehealth.ae
Disclaimer: This blog is general information, not medical advice. If sleep trouble or frequent illness is a recurring thing for you, it’s worth a conversation with a doctor.
Source: Aric A. Prather, Denise Janicki-Deverts et al. Behaviorally Assessed Sleep and Susceptibility to the Common Cold. SRS Journals. 2015;38(Issue 9):1353-1359.
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