- Europe is home to the top five countries who enjoy more sleep on the weekend
- But the UK is not one of them and the US do not sleep that much more either
It might be best known for its stunning Lapland and northern lights.
But Finland can also claim another accolade — being home to the biggest fans of a weekend lie.
People who live in the European country sleep an extra 26.5 minutes on the weekend, compared to their regular workday, researchers have found.
They sleep, on average, about seven and a half hours on the weekend compared to roughly seven during the week.
Brits, for comparison, roughly get 15.9 minutes more sleep on the weekend. This puts the UK 24th in the international league table.
Brits roughly get 15.9 minutes more sleep on the weekend. This puts Britain 24th in the international league table. The US ranks 19th, with Americans sleeping an extra 17.4 minutes, on average
Rounding off the top five is Switzerland (26.1 minutes), Norway (25.8 minutes), the Czech Republic (25 minutes) and Estonia (24.8 minutes)
The US ranks 19th, with Americans sleeping an extra 17.4 minutes on Saturday and Sunday, on average.
The findings come from a team at the National University of Singapore, where researchers collected data from 220,000 people across 35 countries who wore sleep trackers between January 2021 and January 2022.
Their sleeping habits were calculated from 50million sleep sessions using an Oura Ring device.
The device is a smart ring that uses sensors to track sleeping times to provide a daily score based on the quality of rest.
It monitors body temperature, blood oxygen levels, heart rate, heart rate variability and breathing rate to tell if someone is awake or sleeping.
Each person, on average, was monitored for 242 nights and the results were split between weekday and weekend sleep.
Sharing the results, Dr Adrian Willoughby, a senior lecturer in psychology at the university, wrote: ‘Weekend sleep extension was longer in Europe and the USA than in Asia, and was only partially related to weekday sleep duration.’
The findings, published in the scientific journal Sleep Medicine, show that people in Switzerland are among those most prone for a weekend lie in (26.1 minutes), followed by Norway (25.8 minutes), the Czech Republic (25 minutes) and Estonia (24.8 minutes).
As for the other end of the scale, countries in Asia get the least amount of extra sleep on the weekend, as people in India only managed to get an additional 3.4 minutes, on average.
