According to a new study by the University of Oregon and the State University of New York Upstate Medical University, sleeping in on weekends to compensate for sleep deprivation during the week can have positive effects on the mental health of teenagers and young adults. The study found that people aged 16 to 24 who caught up on sleep on the weekend were significantly less likely to experience symptoms of depression. Compared to those who did not catch up on sleep on the weekend, this group had a 41 percent lower risk of depressive symptoms.

The findings, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, add to the growing body of evidence that sleep plays a critical role in adolescent mental health. Teenagers and young adults consistently struggle with sleep problems and are at higher risk for depression, yet this age group has been largely overlooked in studies examining weekend sleep recovery.

Why Weekend Sleep May be Important for Adolescents

This study offers a first glimpse into weekend sleep compensation among typical adolescents and young adults in the United States. Previous studies on this topic have largely focused on school-aged adolescents in China and Korea. Many US adolescents accumulate sleep deficits during the school week as they juggle academic demands, social activities, extracurricular commitments, and, in many cases, part-time jobs. In Europe, too, many young people suffer from sleep deprivation.

“Sleep researchers and clinicians have long recommended that adolescents get eight to ten hours of sleep every day of the week, but that’s just not practical for many adolescents or people in general,” said Melynda Casement, licensed psychologist, associate professor at the UO College of Arts and Sciences, and director of the UO Sleep Laboratory. She co-authored the study with Jason Carbone, assistant professor of public health and preventive medicine and family medicine at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University. While the researchers emphasize that eight to ten hours of sleep per night remains the ideal goal, they also recognize that this is often unrealistic. If teens can’t reach this goal during the week, sleeping longer on the weekend can help reduce the risk of depressive symptoms. “It’s normal for teenagers to be night owls. So let them catch up on sleep on the weekend if they don’t get enough sleep during the week, because that probably has some protective effect,” Casement said.

How Sleep Patterns Change During Adolescence

The researchers analyzed data from 16- to 24-year-olds who participated in the 2021-23 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The participants reported their typical bedtimes and wake-up times on weekdays and weekends. Using this information, the researchers calculated weekend sleep recovery by comparing the average amount of sleep per day on weekends with the average amount of sleep per day during the week. Participants also provided information about their emotional well-being and were classified as depressed if they reported feeling sad or depressed every day.

Biological sleep rhythms, also known as circadian rhythms, change naturally during puberty. These changes make it harder for teenagers to fall asleep early, even when they are tired. “Instead of being a morning person, you tend to become a night owl,” Casement explained. “And the time you fall asleep delays progressively during adolescence until the age of 18 to 20. After that, you tend to become an early riser again.” For many teenagers, the natural sleep window is between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m. This schedule often conflicts with early school start times in the United States. Because of this discrepancy, many sleep experts and healthcare providers support efforts to delay school start times as a public health measure.

According to Casement, depression is one of the leading causes of disability among people aged 16 to 24. In this context, disability refers broadly to impairments in daily functioning, such as absenteeism from work, tardiness, or difficulty meeting obligations. “This makes this age group particularly interesting for understanding the risk factors for depression and how they might relate to the implementation of interventions,” Casement said.

Catching Up on Sleep at the Weekend Can Reduce the Risk of Heart Disease by up to 20 Percent

The demands of modern life due to school or work schedules can lead to sleep disturbances and sleep deprivation. Research presented at the ESC Congress 2024 has found that people who “catch up” on sleep at the weekend can reduce their risk of heart disease by a fifth. “Getting enough compensatory sleep is associated with a lower risk of heart disease,” said study co-author Yanjun Song from the State Key Laboratory of Infectious Disease, Fuwai Hospital, National Center for Cardiovascular Disease, Beijing, China. “This association is even more pronounced in people who regularly suffer from sleep deprivation during the week.”

It is well known that people who suffer from sleep deprivation “sleep in” on their days off to mitigate the effects of sleep deprivation. However, there is little research on whether this compensatory sleep is beneficial to heart health. The authors used data from 90,903 participants in the UK Biobank project. To assess the association between compensatory sleep on weekends and heart disease, sleep data was recorded using accelerometers and divided into quartiles (four roughly equal groups, from the most compensated sleep hours to the least). Q1 (n = 22,475) was the least compensated and ranged from -16.05 hours to -0.26 hours (i.e., even less sleep); Q2 (n = 22,901) had -0.26 to +0.45 hours; Q3 (n = 22,692) had +0.45 to +1.28 hours; and Q4 (n = 22,695) had the most compensatory sleep (1.28 to 16.06 hours). Sleep deprivation was self-reported, with those who reported sleeping less than 7 hours per night defined as sleep deprived. A total of 19,816 (21.8%) of participants were defined as suffering from sleep deprivation. The rest of the cohort may have suffered from occasional insufficient sleep, but on average their daily sleep hours did not meet the criteria for sleep deprivation—the authors acknowledge this as a limitation of their data.

Hospital admission data and information from the death registry were used to diagnose various heart conditions, including ischemic heart disease (IHD), heart failure (HF), atrial fibrillation (AF), and stroke. At a median follow-up of nearly 14 years, the likelihood of developing heart disease was 19% lower in participants in the group with the most compensatory sleep (quartile 4) than in those with the least (quartile 1). In the subgroup of patients with daily sleep deprivation, those with the most compensatory sleep had a 20% lower risk of developing heart disease than those with the least. The analysis found no differences between men and women. These findings suggest that among a significant portion of the population in modern society who suffer from sleep deprivation, those who get the most ‘catch-up sleep’ on weekends have a significantly lower rate of heart disease than those who get the least catch-up sleep.