To put it simply, imagine a phone battery. If you use the phone heavily without charging it during the week, plugging it in for a while on the weekend won’t give it full power. Our bodies work similarly, and we need consistent sleep to keep our cardiovascular system in tiptop shape.
If you’re concerned about your heart health, it’s important not to rely on weekend snoozes as a way to catch up on lost sleep. Take this opportunity to explore the research and find ways to prioritize getting enough restful sleep every night!
Whether it’s work or play that prevents us from getting enough shut-eye during the week, assuming we can make up for it by sleeping in over the weekend is a mistake. New research led by Penn State reveals that cardiovascular health measures, including heart rate and blood pressure, worsen over the course of the week when sleep is restricted to five hours per night, and attempting to catch up on sleep over the weekend is insufficient to return these measures to normal.