You go to bed pretty much the same time during the week but come Friday night, you’re coming home with the cat and waving good morning to your neighbour as he heads off for the early shift. You crawl into bed and accept for the occasional bathroom trip and fridge stopover to guzzle some hopefully non-expired liquid of some sort, you sleep until the afternoon.

When you do get up, the sun is blazing a hole through your slit opened eyes, you have a hangover that could kill an elephant and you seem to whiz orange juice. Some people can recover enough to do it all over again Saturday night, but regardless, Sunday is a write off and you know why Monday is referred to as Hell day (sometimes GWB Day).

Sleeping late on the weekend can interfere with your sleep until the middle of the following week and getting up at 6am Monday morning can feel like 3am for your body.

If you’re sleeping in on the weekend without the self mutilation of the party animal, it may be a sign you are sleep deprived during the week. If you need 8 hours of sleep every night and you are only getting 6 hours, then you build up a sleep debt that you try to repay on the weekend. Either way, you will mess up your sleep / wake cycle by varying the times you go to bed and the time your get up.

The only way to minimize the effects of the weekend lifestyle choice is try to get to bed at your regular time and if you don’t, then get up at your regular time regardless of when you went to bed. The key to a good nights sleep is consistency of your sleep/wake times.

More car accidents occur during Monday morning rush hour because people are sleep deprived from the weekend. And you thought it was because everyone else on the road is a jerk and can’t drive as good as you.