Try a lie-in at the weekend

If you don’t get enough sleep, it can have a serious impact on your long-term health – but the good news is, you can undo the damage if you have a lie-in at the weekend.

Researchers in Sweden analysed lifestyle data of more than 38,000 adults under the age of 65, and then used a national death register to follow their fates for up to 13 years.

Those who got five or fewer hours of sleep per night for seven days a week had a 65% higher mortality rate than those who typically managed six or seven hours. But among those who slept five hours during the week and then got eight hours or more at the weekend, there was no increased mortality risk.

“The assumption in this is that weekend sleep is a catch-up,” said Professor Torbjorn Akerstedt, the study’s leading author, from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.