And it’s great for the heart.
Like everyone else, you would like to go to bed earlier during the week but can’t? Shopping, dinner, children’s homework, work day that drags on… And here you are still up at 10pm or even 11pm because you still wanted to enjoy your evening by watching a movie. By the time you get to bed and fall asleep, the night is going to be short. As is often the case. And waking up the next morning is difficult. “Under the pressures of school or work, people often lose their circadian rhythm, leading them to sleep longer on their days off, but there is not enough research examining the effects of this compensatory weekend sleep.” emphasize the authors of a Chinese study presented at the cardiology congress “ESC Congress 2024” in London.
To find out more, they analyzed sleep data from 90,000 people from the UK Biobank. Of these, 22% reported being sleep deprived and not getting the recommended 7 hours of sleep per night. The subjects were divided into four groups based on their sleep habits and how they made up for or didn’t make up for it on the weekends. They were followed for about 14 years. The aim was to examine the potential impact of making up for it on weekends on health, and specifically on the risk of heart disease.
The result is clear: people who regularly suffer from insufficient sleep during the week and compensate on the weekend have a lower risk of heart disease in the following years, including ischemic heart disease, atrial fibrillation, heart failure and stroke. Sleeping in on the weekend or even napping would therefore ultimately be a good solution for recovery (while we sometimes hear the opposite), particularly for the heart.
The authors nevertheless point out a limit to their observations since the majority of participants slept more than 7 hours per night during the week and therefore did not suffer from a very serious lack of sleep. In France, the National Institute of Sleep and Vigilance recommends to sleep well, to maintain regular times of getting up and going to bed, both during the week and at the weekend. As for the nap, the rule is not to exceed 20 minutes, between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., never after 4 p.m.
