Health tip of the day: avoid sleeping in

No one is suggesting you get up at the crack of dawn even on your days off, but sleeping in is not good for your system. Sleeping in on the weekends, unfortunately, won’t catch you up on sleep lost during the week, and in fact, it will likely just make you sleepier the following week.

Sleep medicine specialists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Centre say sleeping in at the weekend delays your brain’s circadian clock up to two hours, which in turn, messes up your internal clock.

Getting to bed earlier and getting your full eight hours that way doesn’t play with your internal time-zones, so catch up that way, but if you’re hoping to avoid groggy Monday mornings, giving up extreme lie-ins is the only way forward.