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Myth or fact: you can catch up on sleep over the weekend

Updated Six Habits Editorial Team
The short answerMostly myth. In an experiment, people who slept 5 hours on weeknights and slept in on weekends still had worse insulin sensitivity, snacked more in the evening and gained weight. Catch-up sleep partly reduces sleepiness but does not cancel the effects of chronic sleep loss.

Key points

Myth

Many people sleep 5 or 6 hours during the workweek and plan to make up for it on Saturday and Sunday.

Fact

In a controlled laboratory study at the University of Colorado, healthy young adults were assigned to sleep 9 hours a night, 5 hours a night, or 5 hours on weeknights with unlimited recovery sleep on the weekend. The weekend recovery group still had reduced insulin sensitivity, ate more snacks after dinner and gained weight, much like the group that slept 5 hours every night. After the weekend, their body clock had also shifted later (Depner et al., 2019).

Differences between workday and weekend sleep timing (“social jet lag”) are linked to smoking, alcohol and caffeine use (Wittmann et al., 2006). Experts recommend that adults get 7 or more hours on a regular basis (Watson et al., 2015).

Frequently asked questions

Is sleeping in on weekends harmful?

An extra hour is fine. Large shifts in your schedule can disrupt your body clock and make Monday mornings harder.

How do I pay off sleep debt?

Go to bed 15 to 30 minutes earlier for several weeks and keep a consistent wake time.

Sources

  1. Depner et al. (2019). Ad libitum Weekend Recovery Sleep Fails to Prevent Metabolic Dysregulation during a Repeating Pattern of Insufficient Sleep and Weekend Recovery Sleep. Current Biology 29(6):957-967.e4. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.01.069
  2. Wittmann et al. (2006). Social Jetlag: Misalignment of Biological and Social Time. Chronobiology International 23(1-2):497-509. doi:10.1080/07420520500545979
  3. Watson et al. (2015). Recommended Amount of Sleep for a Healthy Adult: A Joint Consensus Statement of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Sleep Research Society. SLEEP. doi:10.5665/sleep.4716

Prepared according to our evidence methodology and the principles of lifestyle medicine. For education only; it does not replace advice from your doctor.

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