Is It Really Bad for You to Sleep In on the Weekend?

If you're already sleep deprived, sleeping in late over the weekend might just makes things worse.

After a week of begrudgingly waking up early, nothing compares to curling up in bed on Friday night knowing your sleep won’t be interrupted by a blaring alarm clock—finally you can sleep in! But despite the normalcy of sleeping in to "catch up" on sleep, experts advice against sleeping in for too long. Doing so can disrupt our circadian rhythm and have a negative impact on both physical and mental health. The silver lining? There is a method to sleeping in that won’t cause your body clock to go haywire.

Related: What Is Your Circadian Rhythm? Here's How It Impacts Your Sleep, Health, and Life

How Sleeping In on Weekends Affects Your Health

Considering 50 million Americans complain they aren’t getting enough shut-eye per night, it's no wonder so many of us sleep later on our days off whenever we need to catch up on sleep. But the truth is that a constant need to sleep hours and hours extra over the weekend underscores a larger concern: You're not getting enough sleep during the week.

“If you feel the need to sleep in on weekends to catch up on sleep, it could be a sign of an underlying issue," says Shelby Harris, PsyD, a clinical psychologist, board-certified behavioral sleep medicine expert, and the director of sleep health at Sleepopolis. Harris cites chronic sleep debt, poor sleep hygiene, or a medical condition as possible underlying causes.

Sleep debt—the difference between how much sleep our body needs versus how much it actually gets—is a top reason we feel sleep-deprived and want to sleep in. But when you use the weekend to catch up on sleep, it knocks your circadian rhythm more out of whack and can do more harm than good in the long run.

Related: All the Reasons Why Getting Enough Sleep Is Essential for Your Health

Your circadian rhythm, or circadian cycle, is your body’s internal clock that regulates important biological processes—all the internal stuff that helps regulate your body and keep you functioning properly, such as cell development, hormones, metabolism, and your natural sleep-wake schedule. A primary goal of this roughly 24-hour cycle is to heal and replenish the body, as needed, so we can live our best lives. But when this cycle is thrown off balance with an unpredictable or irregular sleep schedule (e.g. sleeping way less during the week and way more over the weekends), the body and its internal processes are thrown off track as well.

In fact, researchers refer to the shifting of sleep times between weekdays and weekends (and its bodily effects) as "social jet lag," because the impact it has on your circadian rhythm isn't far off from that of real jet lag—changes in sleep schedules and patterns due to travel across time zones.

A 2017 study, for example, found that women who slept in for two hours or more over the weekend were more likely to have poor heart health. The results suggest that sleeping in on the weekends may actually have a negative impact on your health, not just due to the effects of the change in sleep schedule, but also because it indicates a lack of adequate, quality sleep throughout the majority of the week. The extra hours of rest gained over the weekend were not enough to offset the the health effects of poor sleep. Additional research points out that sleep deprivation may lead to serious health conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or trigger depression and anxiety.

Related: 5 Ways Sleep Deprivation Affects Your Brain and Mood, According to Sleep Doctors

So, Should You Never Let Yourself Sleep in?

“There are no specific rules around sleeping in from a health perspective, but it is best to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day, even on weekends,” Harris says.

But don't go into full panic mode if you love waking up late on Saturdays. You can still sleep in every now and again, just don’t overdo it. Harris acknowledges that life happens, and if you do need a little more shut-eye on the weekends: “Try to limit yourself to an extra hour of sleep.”

The more important thing might be figuring out a way to get yourself more sleep during the week. Adults should aim for seven to eight hours of sleep per night, and create a relaxing bedtime routine to help your system wind down and promote sleep. Your bedroom should be dark, quiet, and cool before your head hits that pillow. Stop screen use one to two hours before bedtime.

Can’t imagine life without sleeping in till noon on Saturday morning? Check in with your doctor. Let them know about your sleeping habits and ask for recommendations for getting back on track, your body will thank you later. “Quality sleep can improve mood and cognitive function, lower the risk of serious health problems, and lead to an overall happier and healthier life,” Harris adds, so it's more than worth it to figure out effective strategies to get enough sleep every night without needing the weekends to catch up.

Related: Taking a Nap Is Good for You, As Long As You Time It Right—Here's How

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