A New Study Says There Are 4 Different Sleep Types. What's Yours?

Here's how to figure out your sleep category — and why your type may not be a good thing.

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 habitsWeekend catch-up sleepers: People who had irregular, reduced sleep on weekdays and slept longer on the weekends or their days offInsomnia sleepers: Those who didn’t sleep for very long and had daytime sleepinessNappers: 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.