August 18, 2023
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A Penn State University study looked at how the heart responds when people make up for lost sleep on the weekends. The results suggest it may not help.
Sleep-deprived people that try to rebound by snoozing longer on weekends don't see improvements to the harmful effects that too little rest has on the heart, new research shows.
Adults who get less than seven hours of sleep each night are more likely to have high blood pressure and an increased heart rate, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. Over time, a poor sleep regimen increases the risk for cardiovascular disease, heart attack and stroke. Lack of sleep also is tied to higher rates of type 2 diabetes and unhealthy weight gain.
To make up for lost sleep during the week, many people choose to stay in bed longer on weekends in hopes of restoring their energy.
But behavioral health researchers at Penn State University say the heart doesn't easily recover from a poor sleep schedule. When people develop these habits at a young age, they could potentially be setting themselves up for heart problems. Only about 65% of adults maintain a sleep schedule that gets them seven hours per night.
"Our research reveals a potential mechanism for this longitudinal relationship, where enough successive hits to your cardiovascular health while you're young could make your heart more prone to cardiovascular disease in the future," said researcher Anne-Marie Chang, an associate professor of biobehavioral health.
The Penn State study examined 15 healthy men, ages 20-35, as they wen through an 11-day, inpatient sleep experiment.
On the first three nights, the men were allowed to sleep up to 10 hours to establish baselines for their heart functions. Over the next five nights, they were restricted to five hours of sleep, followed by two nights when they again were allowed to sleep up to 10 hours.
Each day, the researchers measured the participants' resting heart rates and blood pressure every two hours. This enabled the study to account for heart activity during different periods of the day, since heart rates lower when people wake up.
During each day of the study, the mens' heart rates increased by an average of nearly a beat per minute. The average baseline heart rate was 69 beats per minute. By the end of the study, even after two consecutive nights of unrestricted sleep, the average heart rate was 78 beats per minute.
Systolic blood pressure, which measures pressure in the arteries when the heart beats, also increased over the course of the study.
Chang said the results of the study don't necessarily mean that people shouldn't try to catch up on sleep after long weeks. But the findings suggest people should work toward establishing healthier sleep schedules on a consistent basis.
"Sleep is a biological process, but it's also a behavioral one and one that we often have a lot of control over," Chang said. "Not only does sleep affect our cardiovascular health, but it also affects our weight, our mental health, our ability to focus and our ability to maintain healthy relationships with others, among many other things."
Another factor to consider with sleep health is not just how many hours people get, but the time of day they get it.
Social jet lag is a common effect people experience when their sleep schedules vary during the week compared to the weekend. The concept is similar to jet lag from traveling, except that different sleep patterns can have chronic impacts on circadian rhythms and work performance. This is true even when people are getting at least seven hours of sleep, researchers have found.
The Penn State study follows recent research that examined why night owls tend to live shorter lives than early risers. That study of 23,000 people concluded that behaviors like smoking and drinking alcohol were significant factors.
"As we learn more and more about the importance of sleep, and how it impacts everything in our lives, my hope is that it will become more of a focus for improving one's health," Chang said.
