Latest research: Sleeping less during the week and catching up on sleep on the weekends can reduce your risk of heart disease by 63%

Sleep is a repair process for the human body that can restore the spirit and relieve fatigue. About one-third of a person's life is spent sleeping. Good sleep is one of the three health standards recognized by the international community. Too little sleep or poor sleep will affect health.

In today's society, staying up late has become the new normal for many young people. Staying up late regularly can cause great harm to the body. It is well known that lack of sleep is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, depression, diabetes, hypertension and overall mortality.

Recently, researchers from Huai'an First People's Hospital affiliated to Nanjing Medical University published a research paper titled "Association between weekend catch-up sleep and cardiovascular disease: Evidence from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys 2017—2018" in the journal Sleep Health.

The study showed that for people who were sleep-deprived during the week, catching up on more than two hours of sleep on the weekend was associated with a 63% lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

Those who are sleep deprived during the weekdays can significantly reduce their risk of heart disease if they can extend their sleep time on weekends, especially sleeping a little longer in the morning. This discovery reveals the importance of sleep to heart health and also provides a feasible way for people who are busy with work and cannot get enough sleep to protect their heart health.

Although this research result brings a glimmer of hope to people, some experts point out that catching up on sleep on weekends does not mean that you can completely make up for the harm caused by lack of sleep during the weekdays.

Therefore, they call on people to pay attention to maintaining good sleeping habits in normal times, try to ensure 7-9 hours of sleep a day, and avoid the health risks brought about by long-term lack of sleep.