If you’ve had a busy week, and not fulfilled the recommended eight hours of sleep each night, it’s easy to get to the weekend and feel in need of some extra shut-eye.
Previous research has suggested that you need to get even hours across the week to stay in top health. But a new study, carried out by Stockholm University, has shown that having a lie in on weekends, and therefore sleeping for longer on Friday and Saturday night, can have a positive impact on health.
The research looked into how a person’s age and their average hours of sleep impacts their chances of having a longer life.
Analysing 43,000 people, the study found that, if you get more sleep at the weekend to make up for lost sleep during the course of the week, you could stay healthier and have a longer life. It’s all about boosting your average sleeping hours.
The results also showed that the participants aged 65 or under were the most affected by how much sleep they got. On average, getting less than five hours of sleep a night, or more than eight hours, negatively affected health and meant there was a higher likelihood of early death.
‘It seems like you actually can compensate by catching up on sleep during weekends,’ Torbjörn Åkerstedt, lead researcher of the study, told Metro.
‘This is in effect an argument for lazing around all weekend. There probably is an upper limit, but it’s anyway better to increase [sleep hours] on the weekend rather than not doing it at all.’
With this being said, many sleep experts recommend the importance of regular sleeping habits, such as having the same bedtime and wake-up time. Try to keep your routine as consistent as possible but, if you need to top up your average hours, then don’t feel guilty about having that nice lie in at the weekend.
