Staying in bed extra at the weekend turns out to be a healthy habit

Good news for fans of a weekend lie-in!

‘People should not feel guilty’: weekend lie-in may be good for you, experts say.

Contrary to previous advice about keeping a regular bed-and-getting-up time even thruogh the weekend - especially so for those of us who suffer in general from a lack of sleep - it seems like there’s at least a correlation between having a weekend lie-in and not having unduly high blood pressure. High blood pressure is of course associated with all sorts of serious bad health issues.

For years, experts have stressed the risks of lie-ins, warning that catching up on missed sleep at the weekend can disrupt the body’s internal clock and trigger adverse health effects.

Now analysis has produced a heartening caveat to that advice: if you do not overdo it, weekend lie-ins may be good for you, with an ideal benchmark of 1hr 27min extra in bed to protect against high blood pressure.

Perhaps the reason this finding exists is more to do with the fact that basically everyone is sleep deprived in general these days:

Not getting enough sleep puts extra stress on the body. It keeps the heart and blood vessels working harder and can increase blood pressure.

“Getting some extra sleep on the weekend may give the body a chance to recover and reduce some of that stress.

But don’t stay in bed too long! Massive lie-ins are actually associated with higher blood pressure. Apparently 1 hour and 27 minutes is the perfect time, if you’re someone with that amount of control over the fact.

Overall, weekend catch-up sleep was associated with a 6% reduction in the odds of hypertension.

A slightly greater benefit was seen in people who were considered to be physically inactive. They were 6.9% less likely to have hypertension if they had a weekend lie-in.

Analysis identified the 1hr 27min benchmark as the ideal amount of catch-up sleep, Lee said. Someone getting this amount of extra sleep would be 9% less likely to have high blood pressure.

Not getting enough sleep is known to prevent blood pressure from falling at night, which raises the risk of developing high blood pressure.

Experts have previously stressed the importance of having a regular bedtime and wake-up time and dismissed the idea that you can catch up on missed sleep at the weekend.

However, while the new research showed that getting some catch-up sleep could boost heart health, getting too much could be harmful, Lee cautioned. For instance, people sneaking in more than four hours extra sleep at the weekend were at greater risk of hypertension.

Given the sample size and language used I suspect we’re talking about associations rather than definitive causations, but hey, as the article notes, no need to feel guilty about having a lie in if this turns out to be true! And it sounds like it makes sense from what is already known about sleep and blood pressure.