Do You Sleep In On Weekends? It Might Save Your Life

Finally: science is telling us something we want to hear with our sleep. It turns out that if you’re spending your weekends sleeping in late, you might just be saving your life.

The act of ‘catching up’ on sleep once the weekend hits is often seen as lazy, but according to the Journal of Sleep Research, it might be just what we need.

The study examined data from around 30,000 participants who took part in research over a 13-year period. It turns out that some extra sleep on the weekend DOES actually counteract some of the negative effects of sleep deprivation during the regular workweek.

What does this mean? Well, adults under 65 who live life on less than five hours of sleep every night had a 65 percent higher chance of death than those who got a consistent six or seven hours. However, once they looked at those who suffered from five-hour nights during the week and longer hours on the weekend saw those odds reduce.

This means that the act of ‘work hard play hard’ might actually be beneficial to our daily lives.

Before we celebrate, it is also worth noting that the research also found higher death rates in those who slept more than eight hours per night for all seven days of the week.

So when it comes to sleep, think of the Goldilocks effect: not too much, not too little. Next time you feel a little overtired, science will want you to take a long nap on weekends.