After having to wake up early to the blaring alarm five days a week, new research is giving us an excuse to hit snooze on the weekends. Using those two days off to catch up on the sleep you miss on work days can cut your risk of heart disease, a new study finds.
Researchers in China looked at the link between heart disease and “compensated sleep” - the technical term for sleeping in on the weekend to catch up on lost sleep.
- They analyzed sleep data from over 90-thousand people for nearly 14 years and divided participants into four groups based on how much extra sleep they caught up on over the weekend.
- Around 20% were considered sleep-deprived because they average less than seven hours of sleep a night.
- Study authors found that the group who got the most compensatory sleep were 19% less likely to develop heart disease than those who slept the least extra hours on those two days.
“Sufficient compensatory sleep is linked to a lower risk of heart disease,” study co-author Yanjun Song explains. “The association becomes even more pronounced among individuals who regularly experience inadequate sleep on weekdays.”
Source: NBC News