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The VERY easy step you may take to decelerate ageing, scale back your danger of dementia and improve your vitality

After a tiring week at work, a weekend lie-in seems a good way to recharge the batteries. But could an extra couple of hours of sleep on a Saturday or Sunday morning do much more than simply restore your energy levels?

Mounting research suggests sleeping in on our days off work could significantly reduce the risk of a range of conditions, from heart disease and dementia to obesity and depression.

Indeed the US National Sleep Foundation – a non-profit organisation which promotes the health benefits of good sleep – in 2023 included in its guidance for doctors a recommendation that sleep-deprived patients be told to treat themselves to a weekend lie-in when they can.

The guidance states: ‘When sleep duration is inadequate during work days, one to two hours of catch-up sleep on non-work days may be beneficial.’

This flies in the face of previous scientific evidence, most of which concludes that trying to make up for sleep loss by staying in bed on non-working days did not offset the potentially damaging effects on the body.

Although some people seem to get by on just a few hours a night (Margaret Thatcher famously claimed to need just four hours a night – though she later developed dementia), most of us need seven to eight hours.

Sleep ensures our immune system remains in good condition and ready to fight off infections, our brains are able to absorb and remember new information and our hearts are protected against the ravages of high blood pressure – because adequate sleep helps to regulate the release of hormones that control it.

Surveys suggest one in five adults in the UK – more than eight million people – do not get enough sleep.

Studies have indicated that catch-up sleep can ward off depression, reduce the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes and protect against heart attacks and stroke

Studies have indicated that catch-up sleep can ward off depression, reduce the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes and protect against heart attacks and stroke

So could staying in bed at the weekend be the solution to protecting our health or even, according to the most recent evidence, living longer?

New research shows that catch-up sleep may slow down biological ageing – the rate at which cells, organs and tissues deteriorate as we get older.

Researchers at First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University in Suzhou, China, tracked 7,683 adults who were taking part in a long-term health study that involved giving blood samples and keeping sleep diaries.

The team analysed weeknight and weekend sleeping patterns and compared them with blood tests that measured each volunteer’s biological age – as distinct from their chronological age.

The results, published in the Journals of Gerontology: Biological Sciences, showed that an extra hour or two of sleep at the weekend seemed to reduce the risk of premature biological ageing by about 34 per cent in adults who averaged six or seven hours a night. Fragmented sleep is known to disrupt the body’s normal repair processes that happen as we sleep. The disruption is thought to lead to the release of unstable and harmful molecules, called reactive oxygen species, which can damage cell DNA and accelerate ageing.

A weekend lie-in may also cut the risk of dementia. A study in the journal Sleep and Breathing last October found those who caught up on their rest after missing out on sleep during the week were more than 70 per cent less likely to develop it.

Researchers at National Taiwan University Hospital in Taipei tracked 215 people aged 65 or over for two years – the participants kept sleep diaries and wore accelerometers (devices that monitor when the body is moving) to record sleeping times.

The results showed those who enjoyed a weekend lie-in to catch up on sleep missed during the week were 74 per cent less likely to have deteriorating cognitive function (an early sign for dementia) than those who did not.

Dr Neil Stanley warns that while some people benefit from catch-up sleep, lying in at the weekend could have a negative effect if you already get enough rest during the week

Dr Neil Stanley warns that while some people benefit from catch-up sleep, lying in at the weekend could have a negative effect if you already get enough rest during the week

One theory as to why is that the lie-in helps the brain properly recuperate – strengthening connections between the neurons (nerve cells), which in turn preserves memory. But it may also be that adequate sleep reduces inflammation in the body, which may also contribute to the development of dementia.

Meanwhile, other studies indicate catch-up sleep can ward off depression, reduce the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes and protect against heart attacks and stroke – probably by reducing the effect of stress hormones on the body and keeping blood vessels in a healthy state (again, by reducing inflammation).

And a 2021 study, by Catholic Kwandong University College of Medicine in South Korea, found catching up on sleep at the weekend also reduced the risk of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) by at least 20 per cent.

Thought to affect up to one in three UK adults, NAFLD is a build-up of fat in the liver that’s usually triggered by poor diet and sedentary lifestyle.

Poor sleep may contribute to heightening the risk by disturbing the natural balance of enzymes in the liver, making fat accumulation more likely (this balance is governed by our circadian rhythm or body clock – more on that later).

But despite this, the evidence in favour of weekend lie-ins is still far from clear-cut, especially if you are not actually sleeping badly during the week.

Other large studies have found little or no benefit from making up for lack of sleep during the week with an hour or two extra at the weekend.

‘If you are running a huge sleep debt then getting a bit more at the weekend might be a good thing – but only because your sleep is in a bad way already,’ says independent sleep expert, Dr Neil Stanley. 

‘You need to ask yourself if you really need catch-up sleep because you are sleep deprived, or whether you are just having a lazy Saturday morning.’

Indeed, research suggests lying in at the weekend when you sleep well during the week could have a negative effect, Dr Stanley warns, by triggering something called sleep inertia. This is the groggy, drowsy sensation we often experience after a particularly long lie-in.

It can cause confusion, disorientation and problems with concentration that last an hour or more. It is most likely because waking up later means the brain is in a stage of sleep where it is generating delta waves – the slowest type of brain waves, associated with deep sleep and relaxation.

Crucially, a lie-in could disrupt the circadian rhythm – our internal clock – which controls all our body processes and keeps them in tune with our sleep-wake cycle: by lying in on a weekend, it could shift the rhythm and make switching the routine back for Monday a struggle.

Even if you do compensate for lost sleep by snoozing at the weekend, you’re still very likely to be sleep-deprived, says Dr Guy Leschziner, a consultant neurologist and sleep expert in London.

That’s because it’s not the overall number of hours slept across the course of a week that counts but the regularity of a good seven to eight hours a night.

‘If you sleep ten hours on a Friday and Saturday night, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are re-paying your sleep debt properly,’ he says. ‘A lie-in at the weekend is probably better than being sleep deprived for seven days of the week, rather than five. But a better solution would be to try to make sure you get a good rest every night.’