Insomnia is prevalent and increasing among college students, new research out of Norway shows.

Over an 8-year period, investigators analyzed weekday and weekend sleep parameters in more than 50,000 Norwegian college and university students (ages 18-35 years), including bedtime, rise time, sleep duration, sleep-onset latency, wake-after-sleep onset, sleep need, and sleep deficit.

Investigators found large weekday–weekend differences across most sleep parameters.

Moreover, the sleep duration of most students was at the lower end of normal (roughly 7.5 hours) during weekdays, but they made up for it on the weekends by meeting their sleep needs and sleep recommendations (roughly 8 hours).