Keep Your Workday Sleep Schedule On The Weekends – Your Body Will Thank You

It’s been a long week and the weekend is here at last. Time to relax and maybe sleep in a little. Right? Logging some extra hours of sleep on the weekend can sometimes feel great, but sometimes it can backfire.

Dr. Christopher Winter tells Men's Health Magazine that when you awaken at the same time each day your brain develops a specific sleep-wake schedule. This means your body releases hormones and increases your body temperature at specific times in order to wake you up feeling refreshed at the proper time. Unfortunately, if you disrupt this schedule or change it, your brain doesn't know when it should prep your body for wake-up, which can leave you feeling groggy, like you have a dull headache, maybe a bit lethargic.

To combat this, the good Doc says you should not wake up and then go back to sleep on a day off. If you really want to go back to sleep you should set your alarm for just 20 minutes so you won’t enter a deep sleep cycle, and can wake up feeling refreshed. (Men's Health)