Catching up on weekend sleep may protect adolescents against depression symptoms

Sleeping in on the weekend to catch up on sleep lost during the week may be good for adolescents' mental health, according to new research by the University of Oregon and the State University of New York Upstate Medical University.

The study found that a group of young people, age 16 to 24, who caught up on sleep on the weekend had a 41 percent lower risk for symptoms of depression than a group who didn't.

The findings, published in the Journal of Affective Disorders, highlight the important link between sleep and mental health in adolescents, a population marked by sleep challenges and heightened risk for symptoms of depression. Yet that age group has rarely been included in studies of weekend catch-up sleep.

Eight to 10 hours a night is still best

The study provides the first glimpse into weekend catch-up sleep for typical U.S. adolescents. Previous studies focused on school-age teens in China and Korea.

It's common for U.S. teens to rack up a sleep deficit during the week because of everything competing for their time and attention: school, social life, extracurricular activities, and often an after-school job.

Sleep researchers and clinicians have long recommended that adolescents get eight to 10 hours of sleep at a regular time every day of the week, but that's just not practical for a lot of adolescents, or people generally."

Melynda Casement, a licensed psychologist, associate professor in the UO's College of Arts and Sciences and director of the UO's Sleep Lab

She co-authored the paper with Jason Carbone, assistant professor of public health and preventive medicine and of family medicine at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University.

Getting the recommended eight to 10 hours of sleep each night is still ideal, the researchers emphasize. But if that's not possible, then sleeping in on weekends may help lower the risk of symptoms of depression.

"It's normal for teens to be night owls, so let them catch up on sleep on weekends if they can't get enough sleep during the week because that's likely to be somewhat protective," Casement said.

In the study, researchers analyzed data on 16- to 24-year-olds from the 2021-23 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. The young adults reported their bedtimes and wake-up times during the week and weekend, which researchers used to calculate their weekend catch-up sleep, the difference between the average sleep per weekend day and the average sleep per weekday.

Study participants also reported how they were feeling and were counted as having symptoms of depression when they reported feeling sad or depressed daily.

Sleep patterns change in adolescence

Sleep cycles, known as circadian rhythms, start shifting in adolescence, making it harder for most teens to fall asleep as early as they did when they were younger.

"Instead of being a morning lark you're going to become more of a night owl," Casement explained. "And sleep onset keeps progressively delaying in adolescence until age 18 to 20. After that, you start becoming more morning larkish again."

The typical sleep cycle for teenagers is to fall asleep around 11 p.m. and wake at 8 a.m. That conflicts with early start times at many U.S. high schools. As a result, many sleep scientists and health care providers support the public health campaign to start schools later.

Depression is one of the leading causes of disability among 16- to 24-year-olds, Casement said. In this context, disability is defined broadly as impairment of daily functioning, such as calling in sick or being late to work.

"It makes that age range of particular interest in trying to understand risk factors for depression and how those might relate to delivery of interventions," Casement said.