Catching up on sleep on weekend could lower heart disease risk

We’ve all been told that the best sleeping habit is getting up at the same time every day. But a new study suggests that people who “catch up” on sleep by sleeping in on weekends may lower their risk of heart disease by 20%.

People are swamped and work and school demands often interfere with getting adequate sleep.

“Sufficient compensatory sleep is linked to a lower risk of heart disease,” said study co-author Yanjun Song of the State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease, Fuwai Hospital, National Centre for Cardiovascular Disease, in Beijing. “The association becomes even more pronounced among individuals who regularly experience inadequate sleep on weekdays.”

The findings were presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2024.

People who are tired during the week often sleep in on weekends, but little research has been done on whether so-called compensatory sleep helps heart health, the researchers said in a news release. This study suggests that it does.

James Leiper, an associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, who was not part of the study, told The Guardian : “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 sleep, this large study suggests that it might help reduce risk of heart disease.”

Not a long-term fix?

Another expert, Christopher Depner, a professor in the Department of Health and Kinesiology at the University of Utah, expressed skepticism, telling The Guardian that the study has not been peer reviewed.

Melanie Murphy Richter, a registered dietitian nutritionist and spokesperson for the nutrition company Prolon, also not involved in the study, told Medical News Today that sleeping in to catch up on sleep is a short-term solution, but not the solution over time for people who want to be healthy physically and mentally.

“Consistent lack of sleep can lead to a buildup of stress hormones, imbalances to your metabolism, and increases inflammation — things that a few extra hours of sleep won’t easily fix. Over time, this can contribute to serious health issues like obesity, diabetes and heart disease, as this study also suggests,” she said.

She added, “From a functional health perspective, it’s crucial to maintain a regular sleep schedule and prioritize sleep quality just as much as quantity, rather than ‘banking’ on being able to make up for it through naps or longer sleep on the weekends. Think of sleep as the foundation that supports everything else you do for your health — whether it’s nutrition, exercise or stress management. While you can recover a bit after a rough week, the best strategy is to avoid sleep debt in the first place by making consistent, quality sleep a non-negotiable part of your routine.”

Napping — in moderation — is another tool to counter feeling draggy, especially for those who have a mid-afternoon slump, as Deseret News earlier reported . Sleep experts say it can boost help with memory and cognition, but naps should be short. Twenty minutes is pretty ideal.

About the study

The study included data from 90,903 people who were part of the UK Biobank project. To see if there was a relationship between weekend extra sleep and heart disease, sleep data was recorded using accelerometers. Then findings were stratified into four groups, from the least amount of compensatory sleep to most.

Those who self-reported less than seven hours of sleep a night were considered sleep-deprived. A total of 19,816 people in the study (21.8%) fit that category. The rest were sometimes short on sleep, but weren’t actually sleep-deprived, which the researchers considered a limitation to their data.

They used hospital records and cause of death registry information to diagnose heart disease, including ischemic heart disease where less blood flows to the body, heart failure, atrial fibrillation and stroke. The average follow up was close to 14 years and those in the group who slept in on weekends the most were 19% less apt to develop heart disease than those in the category that slept in the least.

They found no difference between men and women.

“Our results 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,” said Song’s co-author and colleague, Zechen Liu.