Sleeping in on weekends is good for the heart: What research has shown

What the report says

Al Jazeera reports that a new study presented at the European Society of Cardiology’s annual congress in Munich suggests weekend catch-up sleep may be linked to better cardiovascular health. The research examined 40,727 adults in South Korea, using data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected between 2016 and 2023, and compared weekend sleep extensions with weekday sleep patterns.

According to the study, sleeping an extra hour or two on weekends was associated with a lower prevalence of high blood pressure, with the strongest signal seen at about one hour and 37 minutes of extra sleep. Al Jazeera says the overall reduction in the chances of hypertension was about 6 percent, and the effect appeared larger among physically inactive people. The findings have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

The article places the results in the context of a long-running debate about sleep consistency. For years, medical guidance has emphasized regular sleep schedules and seven to nine hours of sleep a night for most adults. At the same time, some recent studies have suggested that modest weekend lie-ins may help the heart, while older research has warned that large swings in sleep timing could disrupt circadian rhythms and reduce any benefit.

Al Jazeera adds that the broader evidence still supports the importance of adequate sleep for overall health, especially because hypertension remains a major global health concern.