Let’s say it’s Friday night, and you’ve made it through another hectic workweek filled with meetings and tasks. (You go, Glen Coco!) You have the whole weekend ahead of you—but while you’ve been looking forward to your social plans since Monday morning, you now feel like your energy gas tank is on “E.” You’re tired. Like, really tired to the point where you’d rather stay in than do anything that requires you to put on real clothes. So… what gives? Why are you so tired on your days off? After all, it just seems wildly unfair that the second you have some downtime to yourself, all you want (no, need) to do is sleep.
According to board-certified behavioral sleep medicine specialist Jade Wu, PhD, sleep expert at sleep tech company Hatch and author of Hello Sleep, a case of the weekend sleepies can often be attributed to your workweek rest habits (or, ahem, lack thereof). Sure, a rogue all-nighter can disrupt your energy levels in the short-term, but if you’re always feeling tired on your weekends or days off, it may be high time to do an audit of your workweek sleep practices. Below, Dr. Wu shares some of the most common workday habits that can lead to tiredness on days off, plus simple ways to avoid these tendencies. Read on, and a weekend warrior you’ll soon be.
1. Overstimulation during the workweek
When your week is a flurry of to-do lists, non-negotiable meetings, and high-stakes deadlines, your body can get caught in fight-or-flight mode. “Our fight-or-flight system can be overused during the week,” says Dr. Wu. Eventually, when we don’t have a crisis on our hands anymore—AKA, the weekend—our bodies can finally let go and relax, and not be on guard anymore. The result can be a rush of tiredness, as the brain finally feels safe enough to turn off the adrenaline pump. “By that point, we may have been scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of our energy, which means the exhaustion will finally catch up with us,” says Dr. Wu.
Overstimulation from back-to-back tasks and constant exposure to screens can also thrust us into mental burnout, says Dr. Wu. “It makes a lot of sense that by the weekend, we’re so exhausted by the stimulation from all the screens, all the decisions, all the planning, all the strategizing, and all the learning, and we just don’t want to think about yet another thing,” she says.
How to fix it: Feeling constantly stressed or overstimulated during the workweek could point to impending burnout. If your plate is indeed overflowing, consider asking your boss or colleagues for help re-distributing your work tasks or leaning on a roommate or significant other for support with household chores. Setting up clear boundaries at work can also help keep those work responsibilities from creeping into your off hours in the evenings. You can also practice calming breathwork, meditation, or vent writing to manage mounting levels of stress and anxiety.
2. Major sleep debt
If you’re getting less sleep than your body needs throughout the week (whether for work or social reasons), you’re essentially stealing sleep from yourself, and at some point, you’ll need to pay it back. That’s the concept of sleep debt, which accumulates every time you come up short on sleep. When you finally have a few extra hours to spare on your days off, your body may seek to repay that debt, leading you to feel sleepier than usual—hence the tendency to sleep in on weekends. Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to fully catch up on sleep debt with just one or two days of extra zzzs. According to Dr. Wu, attempting to do so by sleeping in for several hours can actually make you even more tired than you were to begin with.
How to fix it: The only sustainable fix for the tiredness that can come with sleep debt, says Dr. Wu, is to consistently make sure you get enough sleep (on average, seven hours per night) throughout your workweek—not *just* on your days off. It can be tempting to engage in revenge bedtime procrastination, or stay up late on workdays to do the things you want to do after spending the day working. But that just eats away at the energy you’ll have left for fun activities on the weekend. There’s no escaping it: “The only answer is to sleep enough,” says Dr. Wu.
3. Social jet lag
You probably already know what jet lag is, but have you ever heard of social jet lag? It’s the exhaustion that tends to follow a change in sleep schedule prompted by nighttime social activities (rather than a change in timezone). It typically goes like this: You decide to stay out late on a Saturday night—say, for cocktails with friends—and then wind up sleeping in on Sunday way later than usual in an effort to get a full night’s rest. This throws off your circadian rhythm, leading you to struggle to fall asleep on Sunday night, only to wind up getting insufficient sleep and feeling tired as the week begins.
How to fix it: Ensure that your sleep schedule on weekends stays relatively consistent with your weekday schedule to avoid social jet lag. Establishing a consistent sleep schedule, even on weekends, can help regulate your body’s internal clock and prevent residual tiredness throughout the week.
