It’s no secret that a good nights sleep can transform how you communicate with those around you and even get work done throughout the day. A new study, however, says your sleep pattern could be connected to your overall genetic health.

The study, conducted by sleep and systems biology researchers from the University of Surrey, found that daily rhythms of many genes are disrupted when sleep times shift. The research was funded by a grant from BBSRC and conducted on site at the University of Surrey’s Clinical Research Centre. The staff at the center saw 22 participants over a 28-hour day schedule delaying their sleep-wake cycle by four hours each day. Following the experiment researchers collected blood samples from each participant in order to measure rhythms of gene expression.

The results revealed a six-fold reduction in the number of genes that displayed circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is the clock which regulates the daily cycles of our bodies as we transition from day to night to drift into sleep. Given these findings it was clear that an interruption in sleep could have an affect on many biological processes.

According to Surrey Professor Derk-Jan-Dijk, the results suggest that sleep-wake cycles can be used to influence bodily processes and could have a negative impact on multiple health outcomes. The study went on to emphasize that the findings clarify why we feel so bad during jet lag, time shifts and other periods of time when our sleep pattern is interrupted.

The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal.