Weekend Lie-Ins Cut High Blood Pressure Risk, Study Finds

A seven-year study of 40,727 South Korean adults links moderate weekend catch-up sleep to a 6 percent lower risk of high blood pressure.

Sleeping in on weekends may be good news for the heart. Research presented at the European Society of Cardiology's annual congress in Munich tracked 40,727 adults in South Korea from 2016 to 2023 using the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and found that weekend catch-up sleep after a long workweek was associated with a 6 percent decrease in the chances of high blood pressure, according to Al Jazeera. The benefit was larger for physically inactive people, who saw a 6.9 percent decrease. Per Al Jazeera, someone getting one hour and 37 minutes of extra weekend sleep could reduce their chances of hypertension by 9 percent.

The findings challenge decades of advice to keep identical bedtimes and wake-up times all week. Al Jazeera reports that scientists have largely asserted people should maintain a consistent sleep schedule across the week, including weekends, but this study questions that view, building on other recent research that weekend lie-ins are good for heart health. Christopher Depner, an assistant professor at the University of Utah who was not associated with the study, told Al Jazeera that blood pressure normally decreases during sleep, and that insufficient sleep can impair that reduction and negatively affect stress hormones and inflammation over time.

A 2024 study presented at the European Society of Cardiology congress in London, covering more than 90,000 individuals, found that people with the most weekend catch-up sleep had about a 20 percent lower risk of developing heart disease than those with the least, according to Hindustan Times. Hindustan Times also reports that logging an extra hour or two on days off helps offset weekday sleep debt, giving the cardiovascular system recovery time. Caution is warranted, though: Depner told Al Jazeera the findings are correlational, have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and observational studies cannot establish causation.

The stakes are high: Al Jazeera, citing the World Health Organization, reports that as of 2024, 1.4 billion adults aged 30-79 worldwide have hypertension — 33 percent of that population — and high blood pressure is a major cause of premature death. Moderation matters, too. Al Jazeera notes the benefit appeared only with one to two hours of extra sleep, and Depner warned that very large weekday-weekend differences create 'social jet lag,' shifting circadian timing and making Monday mornings harder. For people short on weekday sleep, a modest weekend lie-in may offer recovery with little disruption.