ArticleBMC public health2025
Beyond the hours slept: inconsistent sleep routines threaten mental health in 100,000 UK Biobank participants.
Article in BMC public health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- A Dynamic Model of Weekly Sleep Timing: Endogenous Origins of Social Jetlag.Nature and science of sleep · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundSleep duration has a well-established effect on mental health and well-being, with durations of 7 to 9 hours being the general recommendation. Here, we analyze the significance of sleep patterns and find that a consistent routine reduces the risk of developing mental disorders far more than simply ensuring a certain average sleep duration.
methodsWe analyzed the sleep behavior of 100,000 adults for one week using motion data from wrist-worn devices. We modeled sleep behavior using multivariate generalized additive Cox proportional hazard models, incorporating a smooth 2D interaction effect of sleep duration and routine sleep hours. We calculated C-statistics and E-values to evaluate model performance and assess the robustness against hidden confounders. We also stratified analyses by age and gender.
resultsMost participants slept for 7 to 9 hours as recommended, yet they consistently only slept during the same 4.8 hours each night. We found that an average sleep duration around 8 hours minimizes the risk of future mental disorders-but only if integrated into a rigorous sleep routine spanning at least the same 7 hours each night. Our study provides evidence that adopting such sleep behavior could reduce the population incidence rate of mental disorders by 23% (HR: 0.79, [Formula: see text], for the average participant). The models showed a strong fit (C-statistics: 0.63), robustness to hidden confounders (E-value: 1.8), and stability under age- and gender-based stratification. We identified weekend behavior as a frequent reason for low sleep routines, with over 25% of the population disrupting their weekly sleep routine during weekend nights-raising the risk of future mental disorders by 10%.
conclusionsOur results suggest that maintaining a consistent sleep routine is more important for mental health than sleep duration alone. Socially disadvantaged groups, including low-income households and ethnic minorities, exhibited poorer sleep routines and thus higher mental disorder risks, underscoring existing social inequalities. Promoting regular sleep behavior may therefore have significant public health benefits.
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