Study details

For the study, researchers looked at data from 90,903 adults who participated in the UK Biobank project, a database that contains the medical and lifestyle records of 500,000 people in the United Kingdom.

Of those people, 19,816 met the criteria for being sleep-deprived, which was defined as those who self-reported having slept less than seven hours per night.

The researchers then divided those people into a sub-group of people with daily sleep deprivation who slept in extra on the weekend.

Those who had extra sleep during the weekend ranged from an additional 1.28 hours to 16.06 hours, and those with the least sleep were losing between 16.05 hours and 0.26 hours over the weekend.

Over a follow-up period of 14 years, the researchers found that participants who reported having the most extra sleep on the weekends were 19% less likely to develop heart disease than those who had the least amount of sleep on the weekends.

Discussion

Other research has found similar results regarding compensatory sleep. A 2018 study found that people who slept four to six hours each night during the week and caught up on sleep on the weekends lived longer than those who didn't.

Another study from 2020 found that catching up on sleep was associated with reduced low-grade inflammation, and a study from 2023 suggested that sleeping in on the weekends could have benefits for adolescents who need more sleep and tend to get less of it.

Zechen Liu, a coauthor of the study, said the results of the study "show that for the significant proportion of the population in modern society that suffers from sleep deprivation, those who have the most 'catch-up' sleep at weekends have significantly lower rates of heart disease than those with the least."

Nisha Parikh, director of the Women's Heart Program at Northwell Health's Cardiovascular Institute and the Katz Institute for Women's Health, said the study was a "well-conducted analysis."

"Sleep disorders, including sleep deprivation have been linked to cardiometabolic diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases," Parikh said. "It is reassuring that weekend catch-up sleep can at least partially mitigate the effects of weekday sleep deprivation."

"Lots of us don't get enough sleep due to work or family commitments, and while a weekend lie-in is no replacement for a regular good night's rest, this large study suggests that it might help reduce the risk of heart disease," said James Leiper, an associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation. "We know that lack of sleep can affect our overall wellbeing, and this research is an important reminder of how important it is to try to get at least seven hours' sleep every night. We look forward to future studies to better understand how sleep patterns can impact the heart and how we can adapt modern lifestyles to help improve our health."

Muhammad Adeel Rishi, associate professor of medicine in the department of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine, noted there are several limitations to the study, including that it only establishes a correlation and doesn't prove that sleeping in on the weekend directly leads to an improvement in heart health. It's also possible that other factors not studied could be responsible for the results.

In addition, sleeping in a few extra hours on the weekend might not undo the effects of a lack of sleep over the week, experts say. One study in 2019 found a link between catch-up sleep behavior and an increase in snacking and weight gain.

Rishi added that sleeping longer on the weekend can only partly reduce your sleep debt.

"For example, sleeping longer over the weekend may reduce fatigue and sleepiness; however, [it] may not reduce the risk of obesity in people who are [sleep] deprived," he said. (Thomas, The Guardian, 8/30; Sudhakar, NBC News, 8/29; Smith, The Hill, 8/30; Swartz, New York Post, 8/29)

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