Noteworthy new findings, however, may leave many thinking twice about disrupting their usual sleep schedule. Researchers from King's College London found irregular sleep patterns have a connection to harmful bacteria in the gut.

Conducted in collaboration with ZOE, a personalized nutrition company, this project is the first ever to report multiple associations between social jet lag, or the shift in a person's internal body clock when sleep patterns change between workdays and free days, with a number of stomach and diet-related factors (diet quality, diet habits, inflammation, and gut microbiome composition) within a single group.

Prior research has shown that working shifts disrupt the body's clock and can even increase the risk of weight gain, heart problems, and diabetes. The research team, though, argues there is far less awareness that our biological rhythms can indeed be affected by smaller inconsistencies in sleeping patterns. For example, waking early with an alarm clock on workdays in comparison to waking up naturally on non-workdays for people working regular hours.