If you’re a fan of sleeping in, don’t look away, as a new study has found that people who get extra sleep on the weekends may be helping their hearts.
The research was published this week by the European Society of Cardiology and found that those who catch up on sleep could cut their risk of heart disease by up to 20%.
“Sufficient compensatory sleep is linked to a lower risk of heart disease,” Yanjun Song, a co-author of the study and a researcher with Fuwai Hospital in Beijing, shared in a statement. “The association becomes even more pronounced among individuals who regularly experience inadequate sleep on weekdays.”
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The researchers used sleep data from 90,900 UK residents to better understand how our sleeping patterns can affect our overall health.
The study found that nearly 22% of those examined were categorized as sleep-deprived because they got less than seven hours a night on average.
Researchers then followed the participants for almost 14 years, keeping track of when they went to the hospital for cardiac diseases like heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and stroke, as well as death records that showed the same diseases.
From there, the team found that those who got the most compensatory sleep were 19% less likely to develop a heart disease.
The data also appeared to show no differences between women and men.
Among the sleep-deprived participants, the highest amounts of compensatory sleep meant a 20% lower risk of heart disease.
“Our results show that for the significant proportion of the population in modern society that suffers from sleep deprivation, those who have the most ‘catch-up’ sleep at weekends have significantly lower rates of heart disease than those with the least,” study co-author Zechen Liu said.
While catching up on your sleep could negate some of the effects of losing hours, experts still recommend that adults get seven to nine hours a night so they don’t need to make up for lost time snoring.
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