A large observational study presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2024

 

 

A large observational study presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2024 analyzed data from 90,903 adults in the UK Biobank and found that people who slept longer on weekends to make up for lost sleep during the workweek had a meaningfully lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

 

Participants were divided into four groups based on how much extra sleep they obtained on weekends compared with weekdays. Those with the greatest amount of “catch-up” sleep were about 19–20% less likely to develop heart disease over follow-up than those with the least weekend recovery sleep. Outcomes included ischemic heart disease, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and stroke.

 

The protective association was strongest among individuals who were chronically sleep-deprived during the workweek, defined as averaging less than seven hours of sleep per night. In this group, weekend sleep recovery appeared to partially offset the cardiovascular risks linked to weekday sleep loss.

 

Sleep duration was measured objectively using wrist accelerometers rather than self-report, and participants were followed for a median of nearly 14 years. Across analyses, higher amounts of compensatory weekend sleep were consistently associated with a lower long-term risk of cardiovascular disease, suggesting that while regular sleep remains ideal, weekend recovery sleep may offer measurable heart-health benefits for those who cannot consistently get enough rest during the week.